
GopyrightN 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



BY 

HORATIO W. DRESSER 



Methods and Problems of 
Spiritual Healing. 

12° $I.OO 

The Power of Silence. 

i2° $1.25 

The Perfect Whole. 

12° $1.25 

Voices of Hope. 

12° $1.25 

In Search of a Soul. 

12 $1.25 

Voices of Freedom. 

With portrait, 12 . . . . $1.25 

Education and the Philosophical 

Ideal. 

12° $1.25 

Living by the Spirit. 

16 75 

The Heart of It. 

16 75 

The Christ Ideal. 

16 net .75 

A Book of Secrets. 

12° net $1.00 

Man and the Divine Order. 

12 «^$i.6o 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
New York London 



MAN 



AND THE 



DIVINE ORDER 

ESSAYS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION 
AND IN CONSTRUCTIVE IDEALISM 



BY 

HORATIO W. DRESSER 

AUTHOR OF "THE POWER OF SILENCE," " THE PERFECT WHOLE : 
" VOICES OF FREEDOM," " LIVING BY THE SPIRIT," ETC. 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 

Ube "Knickerbocker press 

1903 



Ms 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Receive*' 

OCT 3 1903 

Copyright Entry f. 

(Mi. JL-/f 0i\ 

CLASS CL* XXc. No 

6> <7 & / «T 

COPY J. 



Copyright, 1903 

BY 

HORATIO W. DRESSER 



Published, October, 1903 



Tibc fmlcftctbocfter prcae, Hew L>orh 



PREFACE 

PROBABLY all thoughtful people would agree 
that the relation of man to the universe is 
the prof oundest theme that can engage the human 
mind, but not all would agree in regard to the 
method to be employed. The present volume 
aims to meet various practical and philosophical 
demands without insisting upon any one method 
except the spontaneous development of thought. 
Hence these essays, written at different times and 
not in the order here printed, have not been re- 
duced to a consecutively developed whole. Chap- 
ter V., originally a lecture entitled "The Divine 
Order," gave the clue to the unifying thought; 
Chapter XL exemplifies the prevailing method; 
and the discussion of Plato's idealism contains the 
supplementary principle. Chapters XII. -XVI. 
are largely concerned with objections to the gen- 
eral doctrine; the exposition of Christianity is a 
further development of the interpretation pub- 
lished a few years ago in The Christ Ideal; while 
the last chapter outlines the system implied in 
the various discussions, as well as in the ten 
volumes of essays which preceded the present 



iv Preface 

more mature volume. The fundamental thought 
of the book is so dependent on the empirical value 
of each chapter that it is impossible to suggest it 
in advance. Empirical from first to last, the book 
will profit the reader in so far as the leading ideas 
are tested not only by reference to accepted re- 
ligious and philosophical standards, but in rela- 
tion to the realities and ideals of individual ex- 
perience. 

H. W. D. 

Cambridge, Mass., 
July, 1903. 



CONTENTS 



I. The Search for Unity 
II. Recent Tendencies . 

III. A New Study of Religion 

IV. Primitive Beliefs 
V. The Larger Faith 

VI. Lines of Approach . 
VII. The Spiritual Vision 
VIII. The Practical Idealism of Plato 
IX. Plotinus and Spinoza 
X. The Optimism of Leibniz 
XL The Method of Emerson 
XII. Philosophy 

XIII. Berkeley's Idealism 

XIV. The Eternal Order 
XV. Evolution . 

XVI. Lower and Higher 
XVII. Christianity 
XVIII. The Idea of God 
XIX. Constructive Idealism 
Index .... 



PAGE 

I 

31 

52 

73 
100 
128 
156 
165 
201 
223 
248 
281 
301 

3i7 
334 
35 2 
373 
396 
4i7 
445 



MAN AND THE DIVINE ORDER 



CHAPTER I 

THE SEARCH FOR UNITY 

PLATO once denned philosophy as "a medi- 
tation on death." At first thought, this 
characterisation seems absurd, and more than one 
thinker of note has protested against it. But 
in a sense it is profoundly true. Ordinarily, man 
has little interest in the consideration of life as a 
whole. The easy routine of animal existence, 
the fascination of business and social life is usu- 
ally more inviting. Prosperity is not the par- 
ent of speculation. But when an unusual event 
occurs, — a volcanic explosion, a terrible earth- 
quake, or the loss of a passenger steamer at sea 
with all on board, — thousands of troubled people 
seek an explanation of the catastrophe. Why 
did God permit it ? is the customary query. How 
happens it that we are spared ? Is our turn likely 
to come in such startling fashion? Supersti- 
tion vies with theology and metaphysics in the 



2 Man and the Divine Order 

endeavour to answer. Nothing more surely re- 
veals the degree of superstition remaining than 
these speculative attempts to account for a 
great calamity. 

Private misfortune as readily drives man into 
the realm of speculation. Many a man has be- 
come an atheist when, suddenly and cruelly, as it 
seemed to him, he was bereft of wife or child. 
Not until the hand of death strikes its heart- 
less blow do men and women begin eagerly to in- 
quire if there be another world. Calamity usually 
brings either despair or faith, for the same hard- 
ship which unmakes the belief of one may be the 
occasion for the fruition of another's faith. Not 
until we are forced are we inclined to think pro- 
foundly. Scepticism is as likely to be the first 
result as conviction. But at any rate the mind 
is in activity, and in movement there is life. 
Something to account for which demands his 
entire wit— that is the boon of the philosopher. 
Religion, too, grows by dint of doubt and despair, 
and close upon the profoundest sorrow the most 
sustaining sense of love may come. 

The history of primitive man undoubtedly 
followed the same course. As long as the chase 
was successful, and there was an abundance to 
eat, our prehistoric brothers probably did not 
trouble about the nature of things. But when 
floods and famines came, wars and pestilences, 



The Search for Unity 3 

the whole face of things was changed. If a 
thunderstorm broke into the harmony of the 
savage's life, it was natural to think that some 
being in the sky was angry. The myths that have 
come down to us show that human imagination 
was as fertile thousands of years ago as now in 
proposing hypotheses to account for calamities. 
But when our ancient ancestors stood in the 
presence of death — what could have been more 
provocative of philosophic thought ? Then medi- 
tation began in earnest, and did not stop short of 
belief in a certain degree of unity as attributable 
to the nature of things, a unity which at least 
sufficed until some fresh catastrophe broke start- 
lingly in upon man's philosophic repose. 

The first explanations were, of course, crude and 
mythological, though perhaps no more fantastic 
than some of the theories of the divine wrath pro- 
posed in modern times. But these myths all bore 
the same stamp. Something had broken into 
the usual round of things, and that something was 
misunderstood. Man is a lover of success, hence 
an explanation must be sought. If the calamity 
was apparently due to an angry god, that god 
must be propitiated. If some one had sinned, 
some one must suffer. For practically and the- 
oretically man is a lover of unity, — both his 
peace of mind and his business are dependent on 
it. But his reaction was undoubtedly practical 



4 Man and the Divine Order 

and poetic long before it was what we should call 
philosophical. 

For primitive man evidently believed in a 
chaos of unities, rather than in a well-knit whole. 
Different deities were supposed to preside over 
different functions in nature and in human life. 
Each time one of the deities got out of humour 
he must be individually propitiated. There was 
peace only in those happy moments when no god 
chanced to be angry. In course of time each 
function in life came to have its deity ; and if man 
had philosophised he would have been compelled 
to confess that the ultimate world of things was 
such that a polytheistic host somehow existed 
contemporaneously, despite their warrings. The 
deities grew in numbers, instead of decreasing. It 
is with genuine sympathy that we consider the 
mass of obligations by which people were fettered 
in early civilised times. It is with true insight 
into the perplexities of the case that Shakespeare 
makes Cassius exclaim, " Now in the name of all 
the gods at once!" From the tending of the 
sacred fire in the precincts of home to the public 
festivals, the preparation for war, and the settling 
of public and private difficulties, the Greeks and 
the Romans were everywhere beholden to these 
mythological adaptations, the sum of which was 
supposed to make life desirable and successful. 

In India, mythology gradually melted into 



The Search for Unity 5 

spiritual pantheism, so that escape from the per- 
plexities of a thousand unities was found in one 
great whole, without parts, where perfect bliss 
was attained. The entire process of adjustment 
and readjustment, as this change went on, is 
portrayed in the Vedas and Upanishads. Abso- 
lute unity once attained, every possible problem 
was settled by reference to that. In other lands, 
also, the assumption of absolute unity has seemed 
the best way out of the confusion; and mys- 
ticism in various forms has always been an in- 
viting resource. But in the Western world the 
tendency has been largely toward individuality of 
theory and adaptation to the world, so that for 
the majority unity in the genuine sense of the 
word is still an ideal. 

The reactions of primitive man tended to take 
an animistic form, so Tylor and the other anthro- 
pologists tell us. That is, man interpreted the 
phenomena of nature by reading his own feelings 
into them. Man felt the pulsations of life within, 
the beating of his heart and the other physio- 
logical activities, and naturally regarded the signs 
of life around him as indications of the existence 
of similar beings behind or within everything 
that moved. The flowing river was a thing of 
life, the cloud was animated, — even trees and 
stones were regarded as alive. Hence it was 
natural to attribute all unusual phenomena to 



6 Man and the Divine Order 

souls or deities, active in the storm, in the flood, 
or the rumblings of the earthquake. All -the 
world was alive for primitive man. The idea of 
matter as dead or inert is a recent theory. Death 
itself was supposed to be due to a living being of 
some sort : for example, when a man was drowned 
in some "hostile" river. Hence all man's deal- 
ings with death and the departed were based on 
the thought of life. It was a low form of belief, 
to be sure. Sometimes the soul was actually 
identified with the pulse, the breath, or the blood. 
But nevertheless it was belief in life, which was 
everywhere held to be the cause of movement, — 
so the recorded beliefs and myths indicate, and so 
linguistic remains tell us; hence the personifica- 
tions, the tales told about the deities who were 
supposed to be active in nature. The natural 
function was practically identified with a god in 
many of these early myths. Thus the Hindoo 
god Agni was literally the fire which men could 
kindle, the fire which "flared up," and the same 
that flashed in the sky. But little by little the 
supposed deity was disengaged from his natural 
basis and addressed in the sacred hymns as a per- 
son. Greek mythology in time became so per- 
sonal that dramatic incidents entirely took the 
place of the old-time nature-activities. But even 
here man still read his own life into the activities 
which he poetically described. 



The Search for Unity 7 

We may safely say, then, that the first general 
conception of unity which science enables us 
to reconstruct is the idea that all nature is ani- 
mated by beings resembling man. The first great 
thought was the conception of life, — a wonder- 
fully poetic idea it seems at this distance. For 
imagine the emotions of man in the presence of a 
waterfall, whose leapings were regarded as the 
movements of a living being! In another sense, 
this animism was a terrible idea, since man seemed 
to be surrounded by a peopled world where there 
were many unfriendly spirits, so that he had to 
be constantly propitiating, offering up the first- 
lings of the flock, if not making sacrifices of hu- 
man beings. Those were days of superstition 
such that it is practically beyond our powers of 
imagination to picture man's emotional reactions. 
Anthropologists warn us that we must first en- 
deavour to put ourselves in primitive man's place 
as an emotional being, before we venture to conceive 
of his beliefs. For primitive man was doubtless a 
creature of great emotions of awe and fear, cosmic 
feelings, such as we never know in our highly intel- 
lectual age. These emotional reactions probably 
came long before the period of articulate belief, — 
poetry far antedated science. When definite be- 
liefs at length began to appear they were tardy 
expressions of what man had long felt, and hence 
they came out of his most intimately personal life. 



8 Man and the Divine Order 

That animism, or the interpretation of all mo- 
tion in terms of life similar to man's life, was 
universal we have evidence in the great collec- 
tions of myths which scientific men have made in 
recent years. There is remarkable similarity in 
corresponding myths gathered from all over the 
world, whether the myths are thousands of years 
old or believed by men who are still in the stage 
of development of the great savage peoples of the 
past. Thus myths gathered in Africa and Aus- 
tralia may throw light on the myths of ancient 
Greece and Rome. Students of Greek philosophy 
are familiar with the survivals of some of these 
ancient beliefs which are found even as late as 
the writings of Plato and Aristotle. The idea 
that the soul, or at any rate one of man's psychic 
functions or souls, was the source of movement 
in the body persisted to the end in Greek psy- 
chology. In fact, animism was the accepted the- 
ory of movement until the Greek philosophers 
advanced a better notion. There was no break 
between Greek mythology and Greek science. 
The cosmogonic poetry of Hesiod took the place 
of earlier accounts of the origin of things. Then 
the cosmological theories of the Ionians were 
brought forward as substitutes. But the more 
scientific principle proposed by Thales, namely, 
''water," was still a kind of divine, poetic some- 
what; nature was still said to be "full of gods." 



The Search for Unity 9 

Thus, if we would reconstruct the various con- 
ceptions of unity which men have entertained we 
must start with animism, with mythology in its 
various forms, regarded as taking the place of 
what we now differentiate as science and religion. 
That is, these ancient myths were sometimes be- 
liefs in magical powers which man believed he 
could use to his advantage, and again they were 
religious beliefs expressive of his awe in the 
presence of nature, or his belief in immortality 
and the land of the blessed dead. What we call 
science disengaged itself but slowly and very late. 
To the degree that science flourished, mythology 
disappeared. Its appearance in ancient Greece 
marked one of those stages noted above when the 
old unity was broken into, when man was no 
longer satisfied to regard the universe as the field 
of activity of multitudes of gods. More strictly 
speaking, it was not till science appeared that 
man could in any real sense regard the world as 
one. When man began to think systematically, 
polytheism no longer met his demands ; hence his 
centre of interest was shifted. 

We are reminded by the above reference to 
India, however, that for many millions of people 
a religious way of regarding things as a unitary 
whole has sufficed, so that the need of what we 
in the West call science has not been felt. Two 
unities broke free from the original polytheism 



io Man and the Divine Order 

which once held sway. The history of thought in 
India is in many ways decidedly unlike that of 
the West. According to our scientific men, there 
is no unity at all where there is no systematic 
principle. But the great movement of thought 
which began in crude polytheism and culminated 
in Hindoo pantheism, to the disparagement of all 
methods of knowing except spiritual contem- 
plation, is one of the most profoundly suggestive 
chapters in human life. To condemn the result 
as unsound, without long and careful inquiry, 
would be as great a mistake as to read our mod- 
ern ideas into the myths of savage times. If 
we would do justice to man's unitary beliefs, we 
must imaginatively put ourselves in the place not 
only of those who regard the world as the product 
of an extramundane creator, but of those who 
deem the world itself a great living being; or of 
those, on the other hand, who declare that there 
is but one great Self, " Brahman" — " one, without 
a second." 

Among the Persians a dualistic way of looking 
at things became prominent, and life was regarded 
as a warfare of good and evil. This religious 
dualism later worked its way to some extent into 
Christian thought. But viewed retrospectively, 
and despite the occasional appearance of dualism, 
the growth of the human mind is seen to be in 
large part a search for unity. Although in his 



The Search for Unity 1 1 

superstitious days man was at best merely "feel- 
ing after" God, as we conceive of Him, yet the 
love of unity was evidently the implicit motive. 
Philosophy has been, for the most part, a quest of 
the same sort, that is, the search for a single ra- 
tional principle by which to explain the most 
diverse phenomena. Religion would be impos- 
sible in the larger sense without faith in the unity 
of things. Science starts with the unity of nature 
as the great assumption which makes all her pur- 
suits possible. The growth of thought has doubt- 
less been hampered by certain presuppositions in 
favour of particular types of unity ; and it is well 
to remind ourselves that our conceptions of unity 
are only conceptions. In a sense, the real proof of 
unity will be the attainment of that universal 
harmony of things which the mind puts before 
itself as the highest goal of our social life. Yet 
despite our philosophical failures, no endeavour is 
so inspiring as the persistent quest of unity, even 
in the face of facts which seem too varied to per- 
mit of unification into any system which the 
human mind can formulate. 

The belief in a man-like creator, who wrought 
the world from outside in a few days, or creative 
epochs, then retired to watch over it, is one of 
the neatest illustrations of unitary belief. The 
earth was then supposed to be the centre of in- 
terest, and everything on it was said to be for 



12 Man and the Divine Order 

man's benefit. The unity was sometimes broken 
into by special creations and providences. Yet 
in the main the conception met men's demands 
until their peace was rudely interrupted by the 
pioneers of modern science: Copernicus with his 
theory that the sun is the centre of things, and 
Giordano Bruno with his belief in the infinity of 
worlds. How great was the readjustment then 
required! How man fought for his position as 
the centre of creation, a contest which ended only 
with the nineteenth-century discovery that man 
is in every way a part of nature, one among many 
beings and greatly beholden to all that preceded 
his advent! 

The argument from design in nature to the 
existence of a God of nature is another neat way 
of attaining unity. This is a way of approach to 
belief in God which will probably always appeal 
to the popular mind. Nothing seems clearer 
than the proof that, since evidences of intelligence 
are everywhere about us, there was a Creator 
prior to all adaptations and adjustments of means 
to ends. Yet such arguments have come to hold 
a subordinate place since the days of Kant's 
searching analyses in his Critique of Pure Reason, 
and since the discoveries of Darwin. We are now 
aware that nature produces misfits, that purpose- 
less organs survive, and that there is a far greater 
production of animal life than the world would 



The Search for Unity 13 

have room for were there no sharp struggle for 
life. The same facts by which some people have 
sought to prove God's goodness are by others 
taken to mean that God is cruel. It is doubtful if 
the facts of nature, considered by themselves, 
show conclusively what kind of being God is. 
Nature is as fertile as the Christian Bible in the 
suggestion of proofs. 

Philosophically considered, nature is at best 
only a part, not the whole, of the ultimate system 
of things. Any argument based on natural facts 
must, then, be reconsidered from the larger point 
of view. Even the argument from the fact of 
evolution to the God of evolution may prove to 
be only a temporary expedient, although the law 
of evolution be made to include man's mental 
life as well as his physical nature. For the con- 
ception of an abiding order, behind the flux of 
evolution, puts the whole relation of God to His 
universe in another light. The law of evolution 
must then be in some sense subordinate. Ques- 
tions concerning the ultimate nature of that 
which evolves are more fundamental. Under- 
lying those problems there is the still more 
fundamental issue, What is the ground whereon 
evolution appeared? The attempt to answer 
this question might lead one to an entirely dif- 
ferent approach to the conception of God. 

Moreover, the great minds have given up trying 



14 Man and the Divine Order 

to " prove" the existence of God. Such an at- 
tempt simply reveals the extreme limitations of 
finite thought. God is logically prior to all at- 
tempts to prove that He exists. He is historically 
prior to all discoveries in regard to His power, 
life, or causality. The universal evidence of be- 
lief in a Supreme Being as a living presence is far 
more conclusive than any argument, whether 
deductive or inductive. The consciousness, the 
experience commonly said to reveal the divine 
presence greatly exceeds the best report that is 
made of it. A poetic or suggestive account puts 
all logical arguments to shame. If we are ever 
to transcend anthropomorphism, we must make 
many allowances for the feeling factor, the im- 
mediacy. Arguments from the evidences of de- 
sign in nature satisfy only while we regard life 
from a very limited point of view. God is far 
more than the "cause" of the world, else He 
could not be its cause. Nature is far more than 
an ''effect." The category of causation is of 
minor importance. 

It is well, however, to note that the argument 
from design fails because it is inadequate, not be- 
cause it may not be in a measure true. When 
men set forth what they deem the divine "plan" 
they usually have in mind certain conclusions 
which they have read into nature and into human 
history. That is, after an event has happened, 



The Search for Unity 15 

men very easily say that just that occurrence was 
"designed" to happen precisely when and as it 
did. Had we more wisdom, we might read some- 
thing entirely different into our lives. Had we 
more insight still, we would be more likely to 
follow our superiors in wisdom up what Emerson 
calls "the stairway of surprise," patiently waiting 
to see where that stairway leads. Time was when 
men ventured to reveal all the creative secrets of 
God, even to describe the topography of His at- 
tributes. Nowadays, men are becoming too wise 
to hazard a guess at what life is for, except so far 
as they find within themselves a certain power to 
live it, and to describe that life for the benefit of 
the race. 

Another clear-cut conception of unity was that 
delectable sundering of society into two groups, 
"the elect" and "the damned." It was easy to 
posit predestination when it happened to be the 
other man who was condemned to seethe and 
boil. Probably the idea of a hell as neatly unified 
the world for those who found themselves rele- 
gated to it. It was easy for the Greeks to parcel 
off the world into citizens of their particular state, 
on the one hand, while all other tribes were 
classified as "barbarians." The words sound 
glibly on our tongues by which we speak of a 
large part of the world as "heathen" and the rest 
as "Christian." It is equally pleasant to classify 



1 6 Man and the Divine Order 

certain books as "profane," one book as revealed. 
All this passes as unity until it occurs to us how 
terrible is our offence when we characterise the 
life of God with any of His people as "profane," 
when we recollect that every human being owns 
God as Father. The shock is great, sometimes, 
whereby men are aroused into larger ways of 
thinking. They see that by their aristocratic 
belief in sin, evil, and the devil — for other people — 
they have impeached God. They learn at last 
that each soul counts for one only, and that the 
true unity of the race includes every member of 
it in one entirely liberal " City of God." 

Popular optimism is another lightsome ap- 
proach to belief in unity. Yet those who have 
sunk into the depths of pessimism, then have 
emerged into the conviction that the world may 
be made better, seem to possess profounder know- 
ledge of life's unity — an ideal unity for which 
each of us may and should heartily strive. The 
most satisfactory conception of unity must ob- 
viously have room for both the abiding and the 
changing, both the striving and the goal. If we 
are continually upset in our supposed security it 
is only because our hold upon unity was only an 
incident by the way. Most of us are compelled to 
supplement our theory of unity by a large addition 
of faith. As matter of fact, what we mean by 
unity is simply this: our present outlook upon 



The Search for Unity 17 

the world from the point of view of faith. Even 
scientific men are beginning to confess that the 
scientific concept of the unity of nature is at best 
a device of our subjective consciousness, a short- 
hand account of our sensations. 1 

To turn from our Western way of thinking 
about nature as the field of "design," system, 
order, to the prevailing Hindoo point of view, is 
to find that millions of people are satisfied with a 
way of thinking which flatly contradicts our own. 
To put nature under the ban of may a that is, 
the veil of man's limitations and misapprehen- 
sions, seems to us to condemn nature unheard. 
Yet the Hindoo seers have found riches in the 
world of contemplation — shut out from all that 
we call most important — which are wholly un- 
known to the practical citizen of our Western 
world. It is not for us to condemn the reports of 
these mystical visions until we have sympathetic- 
ally experimented in the same field. To think 
one's self into the Buddhistic world, with its 
theory of "Karma" and "Nirvana," its psy- 
chology without a soul, and its wheel of life, with 
no "real" that abides, seems to us to turn away 
from all that is rational. Yet, consider the 
beauty of conduct which the Buddha associated 
with his reactionary metaphysics ; remember the 
priestcraft which he revolted from, and you will 
1 See Pearson's Grammar of Science. 



1 8 Man and the Divine Order 

see how shortsighted is that criticism of his type 
of unity which emphasises its negative side. 

We are inclined to take the freedom of the will 
for granted, or at least we accept some form of 
freedom as essential to faith in the moral order. 
But it is instructive to turn from this mode of 
thought to the world of Mohammedan fatalism, 
and try to understand the kind of unitary belief 
which that conception implies. Again, to believe 
with the Buddhist, in "Karma," is to hold to a 
hard-and-fast scheme of things where there is 
said to be not a single deed which does not exactly 
conform to the law of cause and effect, a law 
which not only binds us, but which exemplifies 
the fruits of our conduct. No conception more 
easily aids the mind to rise to the thought of 
unity than the idea of law, natural or moral ; yet 
none more quickly suggests our bondage to a kind 
of imprisoning fate. But nearly every way of 
thinking upon this basis has its exceptions. The 
theosophist who assures us that we are bound by 
the law of " Karma" immediately qualifies his 
statement by promising that when the soul learns 
the truth concerning the "wheel of life," it there- 
by becomes free from the law of rebirth, with its 
attendant "Karma." To find the ultimate theo- 
sophical unity of things, we must then look be- 
yond the law of karmic cause and effect. The 
Christian believes that man will some time be a 



The Search for Unity 19 

"law unto himself." Some of the great German 
philosophers taught that in this world of experi- 
ence man is bound, yet in the transcendental 
world he is free. The ultimate unity, therefore, 
lies far beyond the domain of natural law. 

The ordinary ethical way of regarding human 
life as essentially a moral experience seems to be 
an easy method of attaining the idea of unity, 
and many ethical philosophers are thoroughgoing 
monists. But what shall we say of nature in its 
premoral forms? If the moral ideal be a pre- 
determined unity, there is no ground for morality 
at all ; for the existence of alternatives, the liberty 
either to sin or to be righteous, is a necessary 
condition. If each of us has the possibility of 
moral action, then the so-called moral order is in 
some respects potential ; it is a collection of indi- 
viduals, not a unit. It is obviously necessary to 
distinguish between the possibility of that which 
is, and the ideal unity of that which ought to be. 
The belief in unity means that the cosmos is 
ultimately congruous with the moral ideal; our 
God is a God of righteousness, and the world of 
human society has the ideal possibility of be- 
coming in very truth the moral republic of God. 
In other words, both freedom and righteousness 
are such large terms that we must take both 
present and future conduct into account, the 
actual and the ideal, the plurality of potentially 



20 Man and the Divine Order 

moral individuals and the God whose constant 
guidance "makes for righteousness." Moral unity 
is thus an ideal yet to be attained. It would 
be robbing ethics of its meaning to declare that 
the world is a unity now. 

The assumption that all men are perfect now 
is perhaps the most indolent way of attaining 
unity, for it at once robs human life of much of 
its value. If we are perfect now, it is plainly use- 
less to try to become any better; the world is in 
a static condition and has no reason for being, 
since existence adds nothing. We ought, then, to 
declare that the idea of progress is an absolute 
illusion, the entire world of error, sin, and evil is 
illusion; we are simply waking up to the fact 
that we were utterly deceived, and have never 
really overcome anything. 

Almost as indolent is the theory that our ex- 
perience is merely an evolution of that which was 
long ago involved. For the real value of life con- 
sists in achievements whereby each of us adds 
somewhat. If we are merely unfolding we are 
only machines, mechanical puppets for the amuse- 
ment of some blase god. Such a theory is en- 
tirely in conflict with what we know about life, 
namely, that it is the domain of experiment, 
heroic struggle, and achievement. When we 
really consider it, this idea proves to be as barren 
as the idea of a goody-goody heaven where there 



The Search for Unity 21 

is nothing to do except to walk about on the 
golden streets and sing psalms. 

Far more acceptable are the little worlds which 
book after book creates for us, the realms of con- 
templation and feeling to which we are admitted 
by great poems, symphonies, pictures, and other 
products of fine art. Awed by the complexities 
of life, the average man adopts a practical con- 
ception of unity which alters day by day as ex- 
perience demands. It is only now and then that 
we become dogmatic and assert that our particular 
creed unifies the world. Yet it is easy, when we 
do generalise, to fall into the illusion that our 
particular conception of unity is the truth of 
truths, not a private working hypothesis. We 
forget that there are millions of people on the 
earth who hold no such view, that we count for 
one only, while each of these others may have 
found as direct a road to the heart of things. 
What we condemn as "materialism" may not be 
such to the one who holds it, for we are apt to 
judge by appearances and by terms. The ra- 
tionalist who disparages all mystics as fanatics 
may be condemning one-half of life's reality; 
while -the mystic who discounts reason may there- 
by defeat his entire object as a public teacher. 
The fatalist is not, strictly speaking, a fatalist; 
his conduct belies him. The pessimist believes 
in an order of things where pessimism plays no 



22 Man and the Divine Order 

part; otherwise he would not be a pessimist, for 
he could not condemn this world unless he knew 
a better. The sensationalist sees a wealth of 
reality in his chosen types of thought, or else he 
deserts his philosophy and adopts a practical 
point of view. One who is a philosophical ma- 
terialist may be an ideal lover of his fellow-men, 
may be far more useful to society than a dozen 
transcendental idealists. It is probably true that 
no professed atheist ever was really an infidel. 
You must estimate a man's conduct as well as 
his theory to find out what his real unity is. The 
hidden sentiments of a man's life are most apt to 
show what he believes. 

Religious creeds are usually the simplest form- 
ulas for the unity of the world. Religion is us- 
ually the resort when our conceptions are rudely 
upset by the unexpected. The higher the type of 
thought the more it tends toward unity, with the 
exception of a way of thinking which we shall 
consider later. But there is a unitary belief 
which is supposed to be a dreadful obstacle to 
this higher faith, namely, materialism. Yet no 
bugbear is more cowardly when we approach with 
confidence, none is more readily misinterpreted. 
The great conceptions of unity which we have to 
reckon with do not include materialism, but 
science in general, religion, man's practical atti- 
tude as expressed in common sense, and the 



The Search for Unity 23 

crowning science of human thought, constructive 
philosophy, the science which examines the pre- 
suppositions and compares the results of all other 
modes of thought. The great value of studying 
the types of unity is, therefore, to discover the 
various movements of human thought and learn 
their profoundest lessons. Hence it is important 
again and again to begin as far back as we can 
and note the vicissitudes of the unitary concep- 
tions as they have been differentiated from man's 
first beliefs. 

In the theological transitions of the nineteenth 
century we have an excellent illustration of the 
transition from unity to unity. When the phi- 
losophy of evolution was brought forward it 
seemed to many that the very structure of theo- 
logy was threatened. For if evolution is the law 
of production, what place could a creator fill? 
The arguments for the unity of nature are so 
strong, as presented by scientific evolutionists, 
that there seems to be no room left for God. Yet 
long ago it was evident that the theory of evolu- 
tion was simply one more unity added to our rich 
heritage. Just as Copernicus compelled the 
world- of thought to adjust itself to the larger 
conception of our solar system, so the philosophy 
of evolution called for an enlargement. Little by 
little men began to see that there was the greater 
need of a God, on this hypothesis. The old idea 



24 Man and the Divine Order 

of a man-like Creator who finished His work in a 
week was only suited to man's slight knowledge 
of nature. Meanwhile that knowledge far out- 
stripped theology, and when theology came to 
consciousness there was great zeal to enlarge its 
scope. It was only in the heat of controversy 
that theology seemed to be the loser. For scien- 
tific evolutionism applies, as we have already 
noted, to certain phases of the universe only. 
The entire universe could not have been an evo- 
lution, with nothing to start with, no primeval 
force, life, or substance. Science believes in that 
other great unity, the law of the conservation of 
energy, even more than in the law of evolution. 
Whatever changes have come about in the phy- 
sical universe, and whatever may result in the 
future, science assures us that the sum total of 
energy remains eternally the same. The law of 
change is subordinate to the law of conservation. 
The question still remains, What is that force, or 
life, out of whose activities all changes have come? 
What is eternal reality? What abides? For 
only when we pass beyond the thought of growth, 
change, and decay, do we reach the conception of 
that unity of unities without which our world- 
system could not be. 

There are other considerations which show how 
foolish were men's fears, when the theory of evo- 
lution seemed to threaten his belief in higher 



The Search for Unity 25 

things. For even if evolution were the one great 
law, it would not prove itself such till every de- 
partment in life had been explained. As matter 
of fact, evolution has thus far proved inadequate 
to account for that which it ought, first of all, to 
explain in order to justify its universality. That 
is, the origin of life is not accounted for; the 
transition from the inorganic to the organic king- 
doms is still a mystery ; and, most important of 
all, the origin of consciousness is unexplained— 
the presence of mind is an enigma. The truth, 
then, is that, granted the existence of an ultimate 
life, eternally conserved; granted "habit -forming 
tendencies," factors to explain the great transi- 
tions from kingdom to kingdom, and, granted 
mind, evolution works very well. That is, evolu- 
tion works within nature, on the one hand, and 
within consciousness, on the other. But when it 
is a question of the relationship of matter and life, 
of mind and brain, evolution falls back helpless. 

Thus, human thought expands as rapidly as 
great men propose new types of unity for assimi- 
lation. There is momentary disturbance, then 
the new idea finds its place, and still there is room 
for larger generalisations. It is not improbable 
that science will be called upon to readjust all its 
theories in accordance with the discoveries of 
psychic research. F. W. H. Myers's theory of 
the subliminal region may be the connecting link 



26 Man and the Divine Order 

which will enable science to account for mysteri- 
ous variations in human consciousness. But the 
mere suggestion of such a thing would now be 
ridiculed— so long does it take to learn the lesson 
of past readjustments. Such theories are usually 
branded "unscientific," and at once rejected. 
Yet it was by the same painstaking method of 
exact research which distinguishes modern science, 
that Mr. Myers gradually developed the profound 
hypotheses of his great work on human person- 
ality. 

It is sometimes argued that even telepathy is 
impossible, since it is inconsistent with what is 
known about the universe. Again, it is said 
that if mind affects matter in the least degree, or 
if matter influences mind, the law of conservation 
of energy is broken. But what if the law of con- 
servation be an inadequate hypothesis, if limited 
to the physical world? There may be a larger 
unity of world-life which contains both physical 
force and mental activity. If we stop at the 
alleged chasm between mind and matter, our the- 
ory is still dualistic. Since mind and matter both 
exist in the same universe, there is obviously a 
greater unity which holds them both, and it is 
this world-unity which ultimately concerns us. 
The conception of the parallelism of mind and 
matter is a useful working hypothesis, but it is 
well to remember that it is an hypothesis. 



The Search for Unity 27 

There is, of course, great value in a relative con- 
ception of unity such as the scientific law of the 
conservation of physical energy. But it is still a 
conception simply, an hypothesis devised to ac- 
count for one domain of human experience. The 
great men of science are free to confess that even 
evolution is a working conception. All scientific 
unities are subject to modification in the light of 
further knowledge; they are not understood to 
be absolute laws. 

Yet, despite the fact that the point of view of 
evolution may not be universally adequate, it is 
important to remind ourselves how greatly the 
modern doctrine of evolution has enlarged our 
horizon. Formerly, the entire universe was held 
to be a finished product, while human souls, if not 
actually rated among the elect or the rejected, 
were supposed to be granted very meagre oppor- 
tunities of regeneration, ere they entered a heaven 
or a hell where there was apparently to be no 
progress. Scientific accounts of evolution have 
now accustomed the mind to contemplate vast 
aeons of growth. Ten thousand years are but as a 
day, as men once reckoned time. No one now un- 
dertakes to limit human history except in a very 
general way. It is but a step from the past his- 
tory of the earth to a conception of a vast future 
to which we may look forward as an indissoluble 
part of the present. 



28 Man and the Divine Order 

Opportunity is conceivably coextensive with 
time : opportunity is but another word for salva- 
tion. Thus the old fear passes over insensibly 
into a new trust, and anxiety gives place to 
equanimity. Zeal for future security from tor- 
ment gives place to joy at the blessing of life as it 
passes. The old doctrine was founded on the 
necessity of immediate salvation, the new is in- 
spired by faith in the everlasting integrity of 
things. Formerly, existence here was viewed as 
a fragment cut off from a boundless abyss of 
mystery in the past, separated from an uncertain 
eternity in the future. Now, life is viewed as a 
whole of which each day is an inseparable part. 
Life "here below" now flows: once it was a 
relentless measuring-rod to test men's fitness to 
pass beyond it. The old order was dualism, — 
God and the devil at strife. The new is inspired 
by belief in a progressively attained unity. 

Other believers in what is sometimes called 
"the higher philosophy of evolution" go farther 
and announce a new optimism. Whatever comes, 
so the advocate of this larger faith maintains, all 
calamities and hardships are advance agents of 
love. There may be many asides and counter- 
activities, but there is in truth no adversary. 
Evil and woe we have with us still, but they have 
changed their temper. Once we went forth as 
children. Now we go forth as men, confident of 



The Search for Unity 29 

victory. There is not the slightest excuse for in- 
action, but it is action of another sort. There is 
no reason why we should get down in the dust 
and push, as if the universe might not arrive in 
time. There is no time-card in God's universe. 
We can now afford to enjoy the scenery of the 
present moment, well assured that the landscape 
around the bend will still be there when our life- 
train arrives. There is a universal tide, pulsing, 
throbbing, pulsing, ever flowing forward, and on 
and on. That tide bears everything on its bosom ; 
that stream is the stream of atom and of star, the 
pulse-beat of the Almighty. Infinite are the rills 
and whirls and eddies which checker its swelling 
tide. Numberless are the byplays of its passen- 
gers. A man may rage and tear and buffet it. 
He may idly float with its silent rhythms. Or 
his strong arms may carry him onward with its 
harmonious motion. But on he must go. Free, 
he is yet fated ; fated only to be free. You may 
with the rebellious one, count life a warfare or 
with the apathetic deem it a bore. You may com- 
plain of its tantalising mystery, or rejoice with 
him who conquers. But the reality of realities 
you shall not see until you, too, move with and 
for the current. 

Yet what numbers of profoundly thoughtful 
people there are in these days who either have not 
caught the spirit of this new optimism, or who 



30 Man and the Divine Order 

still prefer to remain agnostics ! This agnosticism 
is apt to pass, however, into dogmatism with the 
declaration that our knowledge is hopelessly re- 
lative, that reality is "unknowable" — what a 
strange word to apply to that which we know 
so much about! The unity of religion has been 
broken into, and in their doubt many good peo- 
ple have drifted from the churches into sects 
of greatly inferior persuasion. The liberalising 
movement of the nineteenth century has done its 
work and grown weary of its "pale negations." 
We are all heartily tired of negative critiques, yet 
how shall we transcend them? What shall re- 
establish centrality ? What can be done to coun- 
teract the zeal for specialisation whereby modern 
knowledge is collected and catalogued faster than 
it can be unified? 



CHAPTER II 

RECENT TENDENCIES 

IF we examine the tendencies of thought which 
mark the transition from the nineteenth to 
the twentieth century, we find three striking 
characteristics: the decay of faith in authorita- 
tive theology, the heightened development of 
physical science, and the growth of empirical or 
practical philosophy. The first tendency has 
long been viewed with alarm by devotees of re- 
ligion. The unprecedented success of physical 
science has seemed to make for materialism, 
hence, to render the progress of religion the more 
difficult. The third tendency is often taken to 
be an indication of degeneracy. Thus, many have 
found it difficult either to retain their faith or 
tell whither our transition age is tending. 

Now, it would be an enormous assumption for 
one man to claim that he could read all the signs 
of the times. It would be equally preposterous 
for him to undertake to unify the many diverse 
contributions of thought in an age of rapid mul- 
tiplication of special sciences. The larger faith 

31 



32 Man and the Divine Order 

of the growing century will be the work of many 
minds of contrasted points of view. That faith 
must reach a certain degree of maturity before it 
can be unified. The process is the same in one's 
own thinking. The intuition which unifies comes 
long after the analysis which sunders and the self- 
conscious logic that fails. Yet it is possible even 
while one is immersed in the process to see whither 
some of the lines of growth are tending. If one 
can but show that what seemed to be degeneration 
really is growth, one has accomplished something. 
Let us, then, try to interpret some of the signs of 
the times, with the understanding that even those 
signs are shifting while we study them, yet shifting 
to more and more promising fields. 

For example, take the rapid division and sub- 
division of modern science, the unprecedented in- 
crease of knowledge beyond the capacity of great 
men to take account of it. Is it really cause for 
regret that we have few great men who stand out 
prominently above their fellows? Is the tend- 
ency toward specialisation to be deplored? De- 
spite this tendency, the sum of unified knowledge 
is infinitely greater. There are many thousand 
times as many people who are skilled in science 
and literature as there were in the days when one 
man might know practically all that was worth 
knowing in his age. If no one genius can now lift 
himself prominently above the crowd, it may be 



Recent Tendencies 33 

because a thousand seers are about to co-operate 
to declare the greater revelation of our more social 
life. If we have fewer great poets and other men 
of universal genius, it may be because a yet greater 
truth is about to find expression through many 
minds, whose common message we shall presently 
understand — when we know the basis on which 
they are working. With the growth of trusts, 
socialisms, and other plans of unification, political 
and social problems multiply faster than any one 
thinker can take account of them. But this very 
complexity bears within it the seeds of its own 
simplification, and we shall presently discern its 
meaning. 

Nothing is easier than to misunderstand, and 
no doctrine is more ignorantly put aside than 
materialism. The critics are usually those who 
have been subject to materialism in some form, 
and are at last free ; and when a man is free the 
mere mention of his former burden is enough to 
call forth a torrent of abuse. At the least indica- 
tion that an idea or a scheme is the work of his 
old foe, he is on the alert. When the critic of 
materialism has once labelled the new idea or 
scheme, that, of course, settles it: it is " material- 
ism," and there is nothing more to say. A little 
discriminative thinking would have shown him that 
no conclusion is more superficial ; that a man is not 
really free from a thing until he has understood it. 



34 Man and the Divine Order 

To understand materialism, it is necessary to 
understand the reactions of the age. For many- 
centuries man lived under the lash of dogmatic 
theology. He has been told, until he is tired of 
the very words, that he must save his soul and 
prepare for the future life. During the Middle 
Ages, he even believed that the body was evil; 
and there was but little in this beautiful world 
that was not condemned. Luther and his con- 
temporaries won for man the right to reason, and 
after a time men of learning began to rediscover 
nature, — though a few isolated men, like Galileo, 
had already prepared the way by catching occa- 
sional glimpses of her wondrous beauty through 
Renaissance rifts in the theological clouds. Na- 
ture once more discovered, it was possible for 
man to rest for a time in his theological exercise, 
and take comfort in his body. Then came Dar- 
win, Spencer, Huxley, Tyndall, and the rest, and 
the field was free. That scientific materialism 
should flourish for a while as never before was 
perfectly natural. Materialism had its first free 
opportunity to gather the scattered treasures of 
physical science which had never been unified 
since the days of the Greek atomists. 

Philosophically, materialism arose rather late in 
human history, and had a shorter life than many 
systems. To be sure, one of the many Hindoo 
systems of philosophy was materialistic, but 



Recent Tendencies 35 

materialism could make little headway in the 
land of contemplation and spiritual pantheism. 
Not until the days of exact thought in ancient 
Greece did materialism really become a can- 
didate for world-philosophy. Even then it had 
small recognition, and it was more than a thou- 
sand years before it became very prominent. The 
climax of its power came in the eighteenth cent- 
ury. 1 The rise of the philosophy of evolution 
gave the materialists new hope, but that hope 
was short-lived. By the middle of the nineteenth 
century scientific men began to be too wise to be 
materialists, and the only alternative for those 
who could not accept idealism was to become 
agnostics. Huxley summed up the changed atti- 
tude when he declared that he was not a material- 
ist because he found himself " utterly incapable of 
conceiving, the existence of matter if there is no 
mind in which to picture that existence." 2 

The great men of science to-day are not ma- 
terialists. They are specialists whose particular 
assumptions and conclusions must be philoso- 
phically re-examined before their place in relation 
to what is real can be known. Those who declare 
that science is materialistic because the devotees 
of its various branches talk only of atoms, forces, 

1 See Lange's great work in three volumes, The History of 

Materialism. 

2 Methods and Results, p. 245. 



36 Man and the Divine Order 

masses, or other things, simply fail to understand. 
The tendency is towards a unitary conception of 
the cosmos whose one life must be sought beyond 
the mere presentations of sense. 

Nowadays [says Ward] T there is nothing science 
resents more indignantly than the imputation of 
materialism. For, after all, materialism is a philo- 
sophical dogma — it professes to start from the be- 
ginning, which science can never do, and, when it is 
true to itself, never attempts to do. Modern science 
is contented to ascertain co-existences and succes- 
sions between facts of mind and facts of body. 

Let us illustrate by the much-misunderstood 
physiological psychology of the day. It is easy 
to condemn it as materialistic, and go on one's 
way rejoicing in the superiority of one's spiritual 
knowledge. But this psychology does not pre- 
tend to be complete, any more than chemistry is 
a complete theory of the universe. It has a very 
limited purpose, namely, to learn all that can be 
known about the mind from one logically defined 
point of view, namely, when the mind is studied in 
connection with brain states. 2 Enough has been 
learned already to justify all the time and la- 
bour. If hard-and-fast limits shall some time be 
discovered, spiritual psychology will immensely 

1 Naturalism and Agnosticism. 

2 See Miinsterberg's Psychology and Life. 



Recent Tendencies 37 

profit thereby. At the lowest estimate, our 
knowledge of a human being will be greatly in- 
creased. Let the work go on, then. The psy- 
chologists are endeavouring to make of psychology 
a special empirical science in which one may study 
conscious states as such, without regard to values, 
or ultimates. The same man who is a physio- 
logical psychologist is also a human being, and if 
you follow him through his day you will find that 
there is much to him besides his psychology. He 
may, for example, very frankly tell you that all 
questions of worth or value must be referred to 
ethics or to philosophy in general. He is far from 
measuring the world by his special science. Like- 
wise with many other scientific men classified 
as materialists. To know what they believe as 
men is to have this superficial judgment entirely 
removed. 

For example, Professor Mimsterberg, of Har- 
vard, would naturally be singled out as the most 
materialistic of these new psychologists. But it 
happens that philosophically Professor Mimster- 
berg is an idealist of the Fichtean type. That is, 
he believes that the results of his special science 
must, like the data of any other science, be philo- 
sophically reconsidered and described in terms of 
the self. This alleged archbishop of materialism, 
then, holds that the true view of life is the reverse 
of the materialism with which he is credited. 



38 Man and the Divine Order 

Again, take the popular materialism of the day. 
In the truest sense it is the glad joy of man in un- 
hampered existence in the physical world. When 
one considers the bondage which he has thrown 
off, it is plain that, on the whole, man has behaved 
very well. It is the first time in what is called 
Christian civilisation that he has had liberty to 
study and develop the resources of the visible 
world. He is now trying the materialistic hypo- 
thesis to see what there is in it. Stand aside and 
see what he will do, how far he will go. If he is a 
bit extreme for a time, never mind ; the only way 
to know that it is an extreme is to try it. This is 
the age of scientific invention, discovery, and de- 
velopment. Man is now building the foundations 
broad and deep for a larger, higher life. I make 
bold to say that there is more that is sound, ra- 
tional, enduring, yes, spiritual, in this kind of 
thought and life than in any of the ages when 
man has condemned matter and tried to make 
himself spiritual by asceticism and other exclusive 
methods. Amidst all this commercialism and 
love of luxury there is more that is sound and 
sweet than in any age of the world. There have 
been greater seers than any now living. There 
have been little groups of more spiritual people, 
but never such a general diffusion of sound sense, 
of rational belief in law, order, justice, peace, the 
unity of life. The present-day scientific man who 



Recent Tendencies 39 

claims to know nothing about God knows more 
about Him than the theologian of the past, who 
thought he knew God well enough to catalogue 
the divine virtues. To be sure, there are some 
who are greater materialists to-day, because 
there is greater acquaintance with matter, — for 
example, many exponents of medical science. 
There are those whose noses and eyes are buried 
in matter, and who see naught else. But these are 
few. The general trend of the age is far different. 
This is, of course, no argument for materialism 
in its debasing forms. There are tendencies in 
our age which are naturally observed with deep 
concern. But the present play on the stage is the 
drama of physical life. When the crowd is tired 
of the play there will be a change, and, note this, 
when this play has had its run we shall know 
something. It is no half-way affair, this time. 
We are really in earnest to find out what there is 
in the visible universe. We may say unquali- 
fiedly that until man had tried the experiment 
he never would have been satisfied. If, later, he 
turns to the invisible world with new zest, it will 
be to hold fast as never in the history of the world. 
At any rate we must pass through the period and 
have done with it. It is barely possible that by 
having the experience we shall learn so much that 
many of our views of the invisible will be greatly 
broadened. 



40 Man and the Divine Order 

Many of the materialistic tendencies of the 
time which we deplore will run themselves out in 
due course. We can well afford to let this tran- 
sition period show what it is to lead to before we 
cry out that human nature is degenerating, or 
that the great social problems are past solution. 
The fact that religion is seeking new forms of ex- 
pression is not alarming to those who value the 
spirit rather than the letter. The bare negations 
of agnosticism do not long satisfy either the 
scientist or the man of religion. The age de- 
mands the truth which the negations hide, and 
many labourers are earnestly working in the con- 
structive field to meet just this demand. 

Many substitutes have been offered for old 
faiths, but they have been mostly ephemeral and 
extreme reactions from outworn creeds ; and re- 
actions do not long meet human needs. There 
has been an outbreak of fads and catchpenny 
schemes.' But the fact that these schemes have 
won temporary acceptance simply shows that the 
people are restless. The old dogmas have been 
brought out, dusted, and repainted. But the 
veneer was so thin that only the unprogressive 
were held by the device. We have had cries of 
"Back to Nature!" "Back to Kant!" "Back to 
Christ ! ' ' Yet no mere return to any faith or any 
person will suffice. When people begin to doubt, 
the only resource is to resolve the doubts. If 



Recent Tendencies 4 1 

history reappears in a new light, well and good. 
But we must first have the light. 

The profound interest in thoroughgoing philo- 
sophy which so many manifest in our day is 
undoubtedly the most direct evidence of the path- 
way to unity. The special sciences leave our 
knowledge in fragmentary shape only because 
their presuppositions have not been searchingly 
examined. Agnosticism has held sway only while 
men paused by the roadside. Behind even the 
most negative critiques there is a wealth of posi- 
tive wisdom which a profounder analysis would 
reveal. If our sense of unity has been disturbed, 
it is because we are called upon to assimilate this 
profounder wisdom. It was first necessary to 
criticise the old beliefs in order to get things in 
motion. But close upon the heels of the retreat- 
ing scepticism of our transition age a new convic- 
tion is coming. The optimism of the "higher 
philosophy of evolution" already expresses this 
conviction in part. 

Another indication that a larger faith is tak- 
ing shape is the gradual transition of Christian 
thought from the old theological basis to a philo- 
sophical foundation akin to transcendental ideal- 
ism. Typical of this kind of thinking is The 
Philosophy of the Christian Religion, z by Prin- 
cipal Fairbairn, of Mansfield College, Oxford. A 
1 New York: The Macmillan Co., 1902. 



42 Man and the Divine Order 

brief outline of the book will give a clue to this 
transitional thinking. 

Instead of starting with an abstract premise in 
the ancient fashion, the author starts with nature, 
and asks whether nature is self-explanatory. 
Naturally he finds it necessary to look beyond the 
physical world to find a basis for nature, for man, 
and for the personality of Christ. This basis he 
finds not in the supernatural world in the old 
sense, but in the transcendental world of God, the 
eternal reality whose power is the immanent life 
of the great universe which reveals Him. In na- 
ture and man he finds reason, order, signs of in- 
telligence. The energy of nature is the correlate 
of freedom in man. Man is the interpreter of 
nature. Since both nature and man are rational, 
there must be one rational constitution in each, 
one intelligence in both. The noumenal, then, 
not the phenomenal, explains man. Evolution 
is not self-explanatory ; it does not account for the 
appearance of mind. Nature cannot be conceived 
apart from ultimate reality. But, once in posses- 
sion of a philosophical basis of that which lies 
beyond the merely natural, why may we not find 
room for a higher Person, the Saviour of men ? 

In the same way, the author pleads for a larger 
interpretation of history. To the historical argu- 
ment, he adds the argument from ethics, the 
problem of evil, the philosophy of religion; and 



Recent Tendencies 43 

the great fact that man is a religious being, — that 
no theory can account for him which leaves his 
religious nature out of account. 

The second book is an elaborate consideration 
of the personality of Christ, the relation of Ju- 
daism to Christianity, the results of the higher 
criticism, the contributions of the apostolic writ- 
ings to the Christ idea, and the gradual de- 
velopment of this idea. The Christian religion 
was not built on Jesus of Nazareth, but upon the 
idea that he was the Christ, the Son of God. It is 
the understanding of what lies within this idea 
which explains the unparalleled fact of the 
Christian religion. It was the power of the Per- 
son, not merely what he said and did. The cross 
was essential to that idea, yet it was the being 
who passed through the crucifixion from whom 
the great power was sent out into the world. 

The Unitarian might complain that the author 
occupies a compromise position; that it will re- 
quire another fifty years for writers of this stamp 
to be completely emancipated from the old theo- 
logy. But one is inclined rather to credit the 
volume for what it is as a fine piece of transitional 
thinking. Other critics might say that a fully 
worked-out philosophy must more carefully con- 
sider the question, What is reality? and must 
defend itself against the attacks of pantheism and 
other mvstical doctrines. But this criticism has 



44 Man and the Divine Order 

been exceptionally well done in another note- 
worthy work, which is far more indicative of the 
tendencies of the times. 

Without doubt the most important philosoph- 
ical work issued in recent years is The World 
and the Individual, 1 - by Professor Josiah Royce. 
The general purpose of this great work is the de- 
velopment of a theory of first principles as the 
basis of a philosophy of religion. The first series 
is devoted to the doctrine of reality, the second is 
concerned with the relationships of God and man, 
man and nature, the meaning of evil, and the 
nature of the moral order. In the first series 
there is a critical and historical examination of 
the leading types of theories of reality, while the 
second is largely devoted to the more detailed 
exposition of Professor Royce' s particular views. 
Realism and mysticism have perhaps never re- 
ceived more searching criticism. The positive 
results of these doctrines are carried over into 
what Professor Royce calls "the fourth concep- 
tion of Being," a form of constructive idealism 
which, profiting by the exercises of post-Kantian 
thought, finds a method of assimilating the more 
rational results of the foregoing conceptions. 

The theory in general is through and through 
teleological. The temporal world is, from first to 
last, a world of purposes. Time is the form of the 

1 New York: Macmillan Company, 2 vols., 1899 and 1900. 



Recent Tendencies 45 

will. Nature is so far real as it fulfils a purpose. 
For the Absolute this purpose is at once one and 
many: one, as the eternal, unitary basis of all 
existence ; many, as at once the temporal working 
out of the eternal unity and the varied wills of 
finite individuals. The finite self is at once deter- 
mined and free — determined in so far as organic- 
ally related to other selves and to the Absolute, as 
a moral individual ; and free in the strictly ethi- 
cal sense, as a temporal agent reacting upon the 
diversified presentations to which the will gives 
attention. The unity of the one and the many is 
thus a unity of wills. What is incomplete in the 
temporal order is fulfilled in the eternal. Sin is 
due to ignorance of our true selfhood, and evil is 
finally overcome by good. The doctrine is thus 
essentially different from mysticism, since nature 
is purposive: it is not pantheistic, since it finds 
room for genuine finite selves, and goes far toward 
meeting the demands of pluralism, while not sac- 
rificing the unity of the whole. 

The criticism which this work has received 
shows that the theory is still incomplete. The 
present reference to it should not by any means 
be taken as an endorsement of all it contains, least- 
wise of its theory of the Absolute, and its negative 
critique of mysticism. But it is one of the signs 
of the times; and the great interest which it has 
aroused is one more evidence that it is construct- 



46 Man and the Divine Order 

ive idealism, thoroughgoing philosophy, which is 
to furnish the true basis of unity of modern 
thought. 

Of great consequence, too, is the tendency to- 
ward empirical philosophy under the leadership 
of Prof. William James, one of the most influ- 
ential thinkers of our day. If ever there was a 
disturber of the unities of thought in which dog- 
matism serenely takes refuge, it is this champion 
of the facts that are left over after the system- 
makers have done their work, Few books have 
done so much to call attention to the neglected 
factors of life and thought as The Will to Believe. 
Professor James even dares to question the mon- 
istic hypothesis itself. He is far more interested 
in fidelity to life, with all its heights and. depths, 
than in the consistent carrying out of some pet 
logical hypothesis which may perchance leave 
half the world unexplained. To some his stric- 
tures might seem even more negative than ag- 
nosticism itself. Professor James has nowhere 
worked out his empiricism into a connected sys- 
tem. But underneath the apparent negations 
one detects a belief in the unity of experience 
which is of profound practical significance. 

In the works of such men the practical tendency 
of our age unites with the endeavour to develop 
a philosophy of pure experience. It is precisely 
this new empiricism which is rising to meet the 



Recent Tendencies 47 

demands for a new spiritual awakening. It is 
living experience which supplies the lack which 
speculative philosophy feels. The appeal to prac- 
tical experience is coming to be regarded as the 
final test of the validity of the larger philosophy 
to which the constructive idealists are now giving 
shape. 

The demand that philosophy shall be practical, 
concrete, social, religious, is thus the profoundest 
demand of our age. This empirical demand is 
the surest sign of all that philosophy is again 
turning into constructive pathways. "Back to 
Experience!" is therefore the most promising of 
these modern cries. Reality still exists. God 
still lives. Life is still before us. We know not 
what wealth of experience may yet come. Life 
is truly worth living ; there is really something to 
strive for, something to add to the great totality. 
Therefore reverence your present experience, be 
true to all the demands of instinct, reason, faith, 
and at the same time respect the lessons of his- 
tory. If philosophy have not yet discovered the 
true unity, it is only because the wealth of in- 
dividualisms is too great to encompass. 

In the light of the new demands of the age, we 
may therefore say : If it be your purpose to inter- 
pret life, you must study and describe actual life 
as it is, as immediately presented ; not begin with 
a logical fragment as your abstract premise, then 



48 Man and the Divine Order 

deny the rest admittance because it is not logical. 
If nature is a part of a world-order which includes 
mind and the moral life as only in part realised in 
this physical existence, you should not expect to 
understand nature alone. If man is really an 
immortal soul, even now dwelling in eternity, you 
ought to take his spiritual character into account, 
not complain that as a physical organism he is 
unintelligible. The way to end with God is to 
begin with Him. Our premises must be as large 
as our conclusions. We should not expect God to 
break in somewhere into our logical abstractions, 
nor find the soul hidden away in the meshes of 
the brain. The problem of evil will be a mystery 
to the end if we continue to look in the darkness 
for a solution. The "heathen" will always be 
condemned as heathen until we start with the 
premise that every human being is a son of God in 
the kingdom of infinite love. 

One might say that what the world most needs 
at present is to brush away all abstractions, and 
return to the sources of things until it is once more 
fired by the presence of the divine, until it knows 
for a fact that God lives; then be true to that 
fact, live for that fact, realise that the divine or- 
der is, exists, — not merely seems to be. It is not 
so much "reasons for believing" that we need as 
that type of conduct which accompanies thrilling 
belief, stirring consciousness of the divine. The 



Recent Tendencies 49 

world needs science ; it needs education, thought, 
thoroughgoing philosophy, not mere dabbling in 
the metaphysical realm. But it needs the Spirit 
even more than it needs downright thinking. 

We are absorbed in forms: let us have the 
Spirit itself. Therefore, when you read the im- 
perfect terms of a philosophical book, remember 
the broadly spiritual ideal. Instead of singling 
out its defects and publishing them, set a new 
fashion and begin to be constructive; supply in 
your conduct what the book lacks. One must 
be tremendously in earnest to know life. One 
must courageously persist to the end. The sci- 
ence of truth is inseparable from the art of life, 
and one can no more float easily into the harbour 
of wisdom than one can know what love is by 
delegating some one to love in one's stead. 

Let philosophy become religion once more. 
Let religion be purged by philosophy. Let us 
begin work at last. We have scarcely reached 
the age of reason. We live in bits, in schemes, 
devices, and shadows, which we mistake for 
wholes and realities. Let us come out into the 
broad sunlight and be men. A man is an organic 
assemblage, and must be poet, philosopher, lover, 
and much else, all in one. The highest life is 
many-sided. We must adore it from many 
points of view. We must be beautiful in order 
truly to adore. Therefore, let us begin to live. 



50 Man and the Divine Order 

It is usual for philosophical discussions to begin 
with a lengthy argument for an abstract logical 
premise or with certain cardinal facts in the phy- 
sical world. If we ought rather to begin with ex- 
perience in its presented fulness we should plunge 
into the study of life where our own liveliest in- 
terests inspire us. These interests are apt to be 
religious or practical rather than logical. It is 
our higher nature which we wish to understand 
and preserve. We are not content with a soul 
which is condemned at the outset; with a God 
who is mentioned by way of apology at the close. 
It is time, then, to protest against that procedure 
which starts with the lower order of life, and ends 
by confessing that it finds no need of anything 
higher, or finds the lower itself a mystery. The 
procedure ought rather to be the reverse. The 
lower is only intelligible in the light of the higher. 
The attainments, not its physical conditions and 
origins, are the clues to evolution. The full- 
grown tree explains the seed, not the seed the tree. 
If our theory of nature's unity is broken into by 
what is sometimes called "the supernatural," we 
must reconstruct our concept so as to provide for 
the supernatural. If man is a spiritual being, a 
son of God, here and now, it is futile to try to 
understand him in purely physiological terms. 
Moreover, if he be an immortal soul, man ought 
to act as a soul, as a son of God, not as a creature 



Recent Tendencies 5 1 

of flesh and blood. Thus, practically and philo- 
sophically, the true clue to unity seems to be an 
entirely different method from that pursued by 
modern science. Science has tried to explain 
men by studying origins, the low levels of organic 
evolution. But more important than the ques- 
tion of origins is the problem of values, ends. To 
start with nature as a mechanical, self -evolving 
order is to end with the lower or mechanical unity. 
The origin of life and the presence of conscious- 
ness will always be mysteries until, beginning 
with man as a conscious being and with the uni- 
verse as a living organism, we explain the me- 
chanical by the biological, the biological by the 
conscious, and the human by the divine. 

Thus the meaning of the present disturbance 
in the world of thought is the wresting of interest 
away from the mechanical and putting it upon 
the divine. Our age is witnessing a new move- 
ment towards belief in the higher order of things. 
We are learning anew that we are living souls. 
We are turning from abstract theology to the 
concrete God. And in this vitally absorbing, 
progressive present we are once more finding the 
pathway to the Spirit, the clue to the meaning of 
life. 



CHAPTER III 

A NEW STUDY OF RELIGION 

THE works of no living writer more sharply 
challenge criticism, and at the same time 
arouse admiration and zeal for intellectual growth, 
than the writings of Professor James, of Harvard 
University. For he is rather the critic of all points 
of view than the adherent of any one school. He 
is at once psychologist, preacher, friend, sceptic, 
and believer, ready to champion any new cause, 
yet admirably conservative when asked for an 
avowal of opinion. One is sure to agree with him 
at many points, but as sure to find him unsatis- 
factory in other respects. He is ever in pursuit 
of a larger theory, ever emphasising possibilities 
of which the ordinary man does not dream. It 
was to be expected that when such a man took up 
the study of religion he would have something 
strikingly original to say. It is safe to predict for 
his recently published Girford Lectures, 1 delivered 
at Edinburgh University, 1 901- 190 2, a popular- 

1 The Varieties of Religious Experience, 534 pp. $3.20. 
Longmans, Green & Co., 1902. 

52 



A New Study of Religion 53 

ity which will greatly stimulate interest in religion, 
and help to bring about the much-looked-for re- 
vival. 

Instead of starting with an abstract premise in 
regard to the perfection of the divine nature, or 
indulging in abstruse reasoning with the intent to 
prove something, Professor James begins with 
real life. Believing that life comes before theory, 
he permits life as far as possible to speak for itself, 
and reserves his comments for the last. He has 
collected a large number of original documents, 
besides ranging through the entire literature of 
the Christian ages. To a large extent he con- 
siders the extreme types of religious life, well as- 
sured that if he gives place to the extremes all 
else will be included. The result is a mass of 
evidence in favour of religion which might well 
serve as a mine of wealth for religious teachers. 
It is seldom that the spiritual life is so effectively 
made to speak for itself. 

In the first place, the ground is cleared by 
sweeping away medical materialism, which dis- 
counts religion by describing the disordered phys- 
ical condition of religious people. It is just such 
temperaments which Professor James finds to be 
the most striking cases of religion. To describe 
the pathological condition is one thing, to evalu- 
ate the spiritual experience associated with it is 
quite another. Paul's vision on the road to 



54 Man and the Divine Order 

Damascus may have been a ''discharging lesion 
of the occipital cortex," St. Teresa may have 
been an hysteric, and St. Francis an hereditary 
degenerate; but that throws no light on the re- 
ligious worth of their lives; that does not dis- 
prove the value of the spiritual revelations of 
these saints. For all that medical materialism 
can tell us to the contrary, the neurotic tempera- 
ment may be the instrument for the production 
and growth of religion. It is not a question of 
description of physiological states, not a question 
of origin, but of values and outcomes. " By their 
fruits ye shall know them." That which works 
best on the whole is to decide. Accordingly, 
Professor James devotes several chapters to the 
various states, fruits, and values of saint liness, 
and intersperses his analyses of asceticism and 
the like with delightful little sermons apropos of 
modern life. 

Again, our author considers religion only in the 
personal sense. For him the real thing is the 
personal feeling, the individual deed, or reaction. 
Creeds, forms, institutions, are of secondary worth. 
The true religionist prays, puts love, passion into 
his life. His formulated statement comes after- 
ward, and is frequently a lifeless crystallisation. 
There is no one religious essence, no specific or 
peculiar sentiment to which any given devotee 
can lay claim. This conclusion naturally leads 



A New Study of Religion 55 

to a pronounced individualism. Professor James 
welcomes the religious life wherever he finds it. 
He is not a mere Christian, but professes fondness 
for Buddhistic doctrines, and does not believe in 
evangelical imperialism. 

The broadest possible definition is given to 
religion, with the reservation that it shall mean 
something sacred and ennobling, a higher kind of 
happiness, belief in the presence of a spiritual 
order. That is, religion consists in individual 
feelings, acts, and experiences associated with 
whatever men deem the divine. It is belief in 
the reality of the unseen regarded as a higher 
order, and may be associated with a wide diver- 
sity of content. The objective presence may not 
be there precisely as man conceives it. But, 
generally speaking, there is some sort of solemnly 
emotional or other aspiring attitude connected 
with this belief. It is the vast variety of these 
personal associations which forms the subject- 
matter of the psychology of religion, and the 
search is for an hypothesis which shall account 
for the experience on its human side. 

The first spiritual type considered is the religion 
of healthy-mindedness, that is, the optimistic 
type. Then follows "the sick soul," the conflict 
of selves, and an elaborate study of conversion, 
an analysis of saintliness, the limitations of saint- 
hood, the worth of mysticism and of rational 



56 Man and the Divine Order 

religion. In all these classes of experience, passed 
successively in review, the author finds value, 
authority, yet none is universal, none has com- 
manded universal assent. The result is a powerful 
argument for open-minded many-sidedness. Even 
with all these types before us, it doth not yet ap- 
pear what man shall be. There may be other 
modes of existence and other types of conscious- 
ness. Investigations like those of the Society 
for Psychical Research have opened a wide field 
of which we know but little as yet. One ought, 
therefore, to suspend judgment, to continue to ac- 
cumulate data, and maintain the experimental 
attitude. 

Professor James is not yet convinced of the 
reality of spirit-return, though he expresses great 
admiration for the work of Myers, Hodgson, and 
Hyslop. He believes, however, that it is through 
psychical-research channels that we are to find 
evidences of immortality. The possibilities are 
great, but the facts are few as yet. It is well to 
leave the question of immortality an open one, 
and concern ourselves with the more immediate 
application of Myers's hypothesis of the sublim- 
inal self. For it is this hypothesis which sup- 
plies the essential basis for the explanation of 
conversion and other religious phenomena. The 
application of this hypothesis is briefly as follows : 

The study of mysticism and conversion shows 



A New Study of Religion 57 

conclusively that there is a deep reality in these 
experiences for the subjects of them. Whatever 
the creed, and whatever the idea of God, there are 
evidently forces outside of the conscious individual 
which bring redemption into his life. Whether 
occurring suddenly, or as a slowly matured result, 
a changed life follows a spiritual awakening. The 
old interests wane, the conduct of life alters, and 
a life of devotion takes the place of the life of sin 
and selfishness. This process of regeneration is 
describable in mechanical terms as a change in 
the centre of equilibrium. The change of heart, 
the awakened centre of spiritual feeling, possesses 
dynamic power. God, or some other exalted 
person, may or may not correspond to the psy- 
chological state. The human fact is that the 
change of mind and heart occurs in response to 
an experience which stands for the divine. The 
attention is transferred from the old life with its 
interests, from selfishness and the rest, to a 
higher centre of interest. Around this new centre 
of mind and heart, corresponding changes in the 
general mode of conduct group themselves. The 
subconscious mental life also responds. In fact, 
the change is largely subconscious at first. For 
it is in this larger mental life, active below the 
threshold, that the soul lies open to the unseen 
order, belief in which is the very basis of religion. 
Psychologically, this means that a person who 



58 Man and the Divine Order 

is religiously very impressionable possesses a large 
subliminal region. This subconscious field may 
open into the world of the divine, the realm of 
spirits, possibly spirit -return : its limits no one 
knows. The chief point is that Myers's theory of 
the subliminal self supplies the basis for a com- 
plete psychology of religion, a perfectly definite 
theory of conversion. 

All the voices that are heard, the visions that 
are seen, and the uplifts of heart and will are 
directly or indirectly gifts of this larger world to 
which every soul lies open. From a person's sub- 
liminal self this larger world extends out on every 
hand to the unfathomed depths and unmeasured 
heights of eternity. Let us repeat: the voices 
may or may not be objectively real, spirits may or 
may not be present. But whatever the reality 
lying beyond, here at any rate, is the channel of 
communication. Here, too, psychology and re- 
ligion are at one, for both admit the existence of a 
larger spiritual world. Professor James does not 
exclude one fact that it is dear to the religionist. 
The divine grace may be operative, supernatural 
experiences may occur, and all that is most pre- 
cious to believers in the reality of sudden conver- 
sion. The author is not dogmatic at any point. 
He leaves room for the utmost freedom of opinion 
in regard to the nature of the Beyond. The point 
is that the whole experience is lifted from the 



A New Study of Religion 59 

plane of the superstitious and the miraculous, and 
put on an exact scientific basis of psychological 
law. The subliminal field of consciousness is the 
centre of interest, and here many diverse thinkers 
may unite. 

Professor James does not see why Methodists 
should object to such a view. 

Go back [he says] and recollect one of the conclu- 
sions to which I sought to lead you in my first lecture. 
. I there argued against the notion that the 
worth of a thing can be decided by its origin. Our 
spiritual judgment . . . must be decided on em- 
pirical grounds exclusively. If the fruits for life of 
the state of conversion are good, we ought to idealise 
and venerate it, even though it be a piece of natural 
psychology; if not, we ought to make short work of 
it, no matter what supernatural being may have in- 
fused it. 1 

Likewise with mysticism. The author con- 
fesses that he has not himself enjoyed the great 
cosmic uplifts wherein one feels "at one with all 
being," but he treats the records of the mystics 
most reverently, and assigns them a place as real 
facts. . Yet despite the authority of these states, 
for those who enjoy them, they should be sub- 
mitted to critical tests. They break down the 
authority of those who assume the universal 

"P. 237. 



60 Man and the Divine Order 

superiority of reason ; yet reason has an authority 
which is equally worthy of consideration, so that 
in the end feeling and thought must go hand in 
hand. 

The philosophical portion of the book is left in 
unfinished shape, as the author prefers to reserve 
certain questions for a later volume. In a post- 
script he gives a brief summary of his religious 
opinions and leaves the reader to complete the 
rational doctrine of the book as best he may. 

The point which is most likely to challenge 
criticism is more and more clearly emphasised as 
the discussion reaches its unfinished conclusion. 
Nearly all champions of religion are exponents of 
some form of unified faith, or monism, the point of 
view which sees the world as one piece. But 
Professor James is a pronounced pluralist, a be- 
liever not merely in the system of things, but in 
their disparateness, the separate existence of God, 
real finite souls, a real world, real moral freedom, 
and real evil. 1 The facts of the world are too 
many and too diverse to fit into any one scheme. 
There is no all-sufficient revelation, no single re- 
ligion that embraces all truth. Some systems 
make too much of certain aspects of life: others 
ignore the most vital problems. We ought, then, 
to hold all facts side by side in solution, rather 
than give way to the passion for unity. 
1 See his Will To Believe, Preface. 



A New Study of Religion 61 

And so with religious experience in particular. 
Trie optimist has his world, the pessimist has his. 
Both are true in a respect in which the other is 
blind, but both may be childlike as compared with 
those who have passed through the conflict of 
selves and been born again. There is no good 
reason to doubt that the mystic is in actual com- 
munion with his God. But what a vast array of 
conflicting formulas mystics have clothed their 
thought in, from the days of early Brahmanism, 
Suflsm, and the mystics of the Middle Ages to the 
present time! There is no alternative but the 
comparative study of mysticism; no state of 
religious feeling is absolute, or authoritative, with- 
out interpretation. Yet the pretensions of phi- 
losophy are equally to be guarded against, for 
when the last word has been said rational experi- 
ence is of relative value only. Finally, the claims 
of modern science that religion is merely a sur- 
vival from superstitious times are equally shallow. 
Science tries to set up a sort of universal criterion : 
the consensus of the competent, a quasi-imper- 
sonal standard. But religion has been shown to 
be decidedly personal. When science has uttered 
her last word, the philosophical idealist can reply 
that there is nothing of which he is so sure as 
the existence of his personal consciousness. Thus 
science is unable to rob us of the basis and reality 
of religion. 



62 Man and the Divine Order 

The result is the opposite of that which pleases 
the proselyter. Where there is such a wealth of 
alternatives it is obviously impossible to per- 
suade a man that your way is the best way, and 
that he must follow in your footsteps or be 
damned. There is the utmost room for variety 
of religious conduct. Individualism first, last, 
and always is the word. This conclusion is made 
all the more emphatic by the constant reminder 
that we do not yet know all, that there may be 
other types of experience awaiting us. 

Obviously, the balance of power is transferred 
to the human side. The conditions of receptivity 
in the individual would seem to be the centre of 
interest. If one have a large subliminal region 
one would like to know it, and to train the mental 
powers for its growth into consciousness. One 
might even say that the training of the attention 
is the secret of the whole matter. 

If, now, the critic declares that the author has 
never felt the real touch of religion, he will thereby 
confess that he has not read deeply in this book, 
which, despite its note of scepticism, has an in- 
spiring overtone of reverence and worship. Pro- 
fessor James's profoundest word is that the best 
thing about us is our over-beliefs. He has his 
over-belief, and he poetically suggests it where 
dull prose would mar. This is not a book to be 
judged by the letter simply, but by the spirit. 



A New Study of Religion 63 

Read deeply, it reveals the life of religion in a new 
light, of direct significance for one's personal as 
for one's public life. His scepticism refers rather 
to secondary matters: the essentials of religion 
remain untouched. While nothing is said about 
the specific beliefs of the Christian with regard to 
Jesus, one may add one's particular faith as an 
over-belief. Only the extreme breadth of view 
can perplex, while only the neglect of the central 
hypothesis is likely to leave the mind in a chaotic 
state. 

Generally speaking, the book tends greatly to 
strengthen one's belief in the everlasting reality of 
religion. The reader's mind passes through many 
fluctuations, from belief to scepticism, and the con- 
cluding impression is not entirely satisfactory. 
But the book as a whole is a striking testimony to 
the universality of religion. Professor James is a 
kind of universal theist, a spiritual democrat. He 
welcomes religious experience in all forms and 
from all lands. He believes in God, yet he finds 
the theistic belief so rich that he thinks perhaps 
a multitude of gods is needed to meet the need 
of the vast variety of psychological states asso- 
ciated with the unseen. He is as unwilling to 
run all the gold into one mould as in his Will to 
Believe. He is empirical to the end. But it is 
only because the bits of experience are too numer- 
ous to constitute any one mosaic, and, after all, 



64 Man and the Divine Order 

Professor James does not care for mosaics: he 
wants a living totality large enough to hold all 
the elements. He intends to contest even the 
right of such profound treatises as The World and 
the Individual, by Professor Royce, to claim the 
whole truth. Therefore the fragmentary nature 
of his conclusions is an earnest of somewhat 
greater to follow. 

When we turn, finally, to consider the notable 
points in this great book we emphasise first the 
author's insistence on the distinction between 
judgments of fact and judgments of value. His 
work is in large part an appeal to fact — the pro- 
foundly significant fact that religious devotees 
the world over believe in the existence of an un- 
seen spiritual order. This "added dimension of 
emotion," the priority and superiority of the im- 
mediate spiritual experience, is the fundamental 
datum. The second great fact is the actual work 
wrought in the lives of those who put themselves 
in relation with the higher order. The higher 
order is no mere lifeless figment of a disordered 
imagination, but "spiritual energy flows in and 
produces effects." A new zest is added to life. 
There is an assurance of safety, a sentiment of 
peace and trust. The discovery that the "con- 
scious person is continuous with a wider self 
through which saving experiences come" brings 
a sense of freedom, a joy, a power to do good, 



A New Study of Religion 65 

which wonderfully transforms and uplifts the life. 
Thus it is he who " lives the life," not he who 
holds the theory, who really proves the reality of 
religion. 

From first to last, Professor James persuasively 
contends for the primacy of these first-hand evi- 
dences, in contrast with speculative arguments. 
His chapter on abstract theology and philosophical 
absolutism is one of the strongest in the book. It 
is difficult to see how any reader can fail to be 
convinced that religious experience stands first, 
while theology, all institutions, and doctrines are 
secondary. Yet the relativity of religious expe- 
rience is shown with equal persuasiveness. The 
authority of mystical experience counts as one 
authority simply. The authority of reason counts 
as one more. Neither is infallible. 

The two great considerations in this book are, 
therefore, these: (1) The evidence for a higher 
order, with the fruits of belief in that order which 
the religious life displays; and (2) the method of 
interpreting the evidence, both in regard to the 
first-hand experience itself and the results which 
show its value. That is to say, the question of 
fact stands first ; the question of values is equally 
an affair of experience. Until you have enjoyed 
the religious experience in some regenerating 
form, you are not entitled to pass judgment upon 
its reality. But when you have felt the presence 



66 Man and the Divine Order 

of a transforming power in your life, and formu- 
lated your experience in terms of thought, you 
must again refer to experience as the ultimate 
test, not to a theological criterion supposed to be 
universal. 

The next important point is the formulation of 
a satisfactory psychological hypothesis by which 
to explain the various phenomena of conversion, 
ecstasy, and prayer, namely, the theory of a sub- 
conscious or subliminal region. Here, again, the 
empirical test is ultimate, for, as sound as this 
hypothesis is, no one is likely to see the force of 
Professor James's argument who is not yet con- 
scious of unusual mental states. It is, of course, 
easier for the dogmatic naturalist to declare that 
there is naught in religion which cannot be ex- 
plained on a naturalistic basis. But to conclude 
that, because a satisfactory psychological basis 
has been proposed, therefore there is no reason to 
conceive of anything beyond our ordinary con- 
sciousness, is to miss the most important point in 
the whole volume. The extreme liberality of the 
author's attitude should not blind one to the fact 
that the book is itself essentially an expression of 
the religious spirit. The perverse reader will still 
doubt. But he who understands will see that the 
theory here proposed makes religion far more 
plausible, gives the greater reason for believing 
that the soul actually is in immediate relation 



A New Study of Religion 67 

with a higher order, a real world of a superior 
character. 

It is on account of its persuasive empiricism, 
then, that this book marks an epoch in the de- 
velopment of a philosophy of religion. It is here, 
too, that it makes a permanent contribution to 
human thought. For it ought to be an estab- 
lished conclusion from this time forth that re- 
ligious experience stands first ; its formulation and 
organisation into institutions, secondary. So far 
as this result is concerned the book is worthy of 
unqualified acceptance. For even if institutions 
be accorded a very prominent place in the devel- 
opment and preservation of religion, the founders 
of such institutions ought constantly to remember 
that first-hand experience is their reason for being. 
Only by constantly returning to the sources can 
one keep, the expressions of the religious spirit 
pure. 

Yet the fact that institutions have deplorably 
failed to be loyal to the spirit of Christianity 
should not blind one to the unparalleled beauty 
and simplicity of the life of Jesus. Here, too, is a 
source to return to, perhaps as frequently as to 
the sanctuaries of one's own heart. One cannot 
help believing that there is a normal type, that all 
problems and interests are secondary as compared 
with that divine quickening which so fills the 
mind that there is no time to think of the how 



68 Man and the Divine Order 

and the why of subjective experience. Jesus was 
far more than a saint, far more than a mystic. 
Many of the tests which are applicable to egoistic 
types of religious experience would be simply irre- 
levant if applied to him. Moreover, in his simple, 
direct gospel there is a solution for the perplexi- 
ties of the religious life for which one may look in 
vain in the fields of critical thought. On the other 
hand, if any one ever showed by his conduct that 
he believed in a superior reality, it was the car- 
penter-prophet of Nazareth. 

There is another type of religious experience 
about which Professor James has little to say, 
although the need of it is more and more apparent 
as the volume draws to an end. We are con- 
stantly warned, for example, that saintliness 
easily runs to excess. There is very much in the 
lives of the religious devotees here described 
which one would not care to repeat. Since there 
is no one religious essence, no type of spiritual life 
which proves adequate, so far as it is here able to 
give account of itself, the question arises, What is 
the resource ? If all mystical experience must be 
criticised, adjusted in relation to other experience, 
what shall be the criterion? Granted this collec- 
tion of religious experiences, what shall one make 
out of it ? 

We have noted that the fruits of experience are 
tests of the worth of religion. But mere experi- 



A New Study of Religion 69 

ence is only the first step. Shall one accept all 
of the fruits? If not, there must be some stand- 
ard by which to judge them, even if this standard 
must itself be verified by further experience. 

Professor James hints at that which for many 
readers will be the solution of this problem when 
he points out the relative deficiency of intellect 
on the part of most saints, and calls attention to 
the fanatical excesses which often mar even the 
noblest fruits of saint liness. In the last analysis 
the mere saint is not attractive. One turns 
again with renewed interest to that other type of 
religious life in which the emotions are wisely 
restrained, but where there is nevertheless great 
depth of genuine religious sentiment — the re- 
fined, cultivated, well-organised religious life. The 
world into which the saintliness of a man like 
James Martineau admits us is of an entirely differ- 
ent character. Here, religion no longer appears 
as merely presented, not in its crude form. But 
it has been put through the tests of thought and 
become transfigured. It is the religion of the 
most delicate sentiment, of rhythmic utterance 
and poetic metaphor. It does not suffer by the 
process, but is purified of the dross which en- 
cumbers the more sensuous forms of religion. 

There is many a religious devotee who is nat- 
urally as mystical as any of the saints of whom 
Professor James writes, but with whom ecstasy 



70 Man and the Divine Order 

and excess have given place to calm contempla- 
tion and moderation. Again, there are those who, 
at a certain stage in their career, would have been 
fit candidates for sudden conversion. But, hav- 
ing reached a more highly developed stage before 
the religious nature was deeply touched, their 
spiritual awakening has been gradual. Hence 
there have been no emotional excesses. These 
people have made less stir in the world at any 
given time. Their influence on their fellows has 
been quiet, but deep and lasting. Shall one say 
that they are any less religious than the men and 
women who are able to stand up and declare 
themselves ' ' converted ' ' ? 

The theory of the subliminal self, and the imme- 
diate presence of a higher order, is no less applica- 
ble to this type. The spiritual insights are no less 
genuine. But the whole life has been adapted 
with these higher influences in view, the intuitions 
have been so organised as to avoid the irration- 
alities of mysticism. Some of these religious 
devotees are doubtless called "cold" by the out- 
wardly demonstrative people of the emotional 
type. But, again, who shall say that they are any 
less religious? Need religion always be demon- 
strative in the same way? 

The fallibility of mysticism demands just such 
an organisation as calm yet appreciative thought 
can give it. The criterion of mysticism cannot 



A New Study of Religion 71 

be intellect alone, for the intellect utterly de- 
spises mysticism. The reconstruction must come 
through illumined reason, reason which admits 
the primacy of religious experience, yet is sensi- 
ble of its high calling as the ally and exponent 
of spiritual revelation. The values ascertained by 
reason must once more be tested by experience, 
yet reason will always have a last word to say, to 
the enrichment of the fruits of conduct. 

Experience as such is always just so much gen- 
eral material for reason to react upon. If the 
ideal is a golden mean, there must be a very broad 
standard of adjustment, one which each individual 
may apply for himself. Mere expression, let us 
repeat, is only one step. It is possible to have 
too many loves. The neurotic temperament may 
be the condition of spiritual revelations of a cer- 
tain type, but there may be more desirable types. 
The conversion process offers all sorts of new 
sentiments and notions for examination and selec- 
tion. To select is to begin to organise. To or- 
ganise is to pass beyond the merely given, the 
mystical, the observed or felt experience, to that 
more highly developed region where reason and 
the spirit combine. 

The moral of Professor James's book would 
seem, then, to be twofold: First yield yourself 
fully to religious experience on your highest side, 
cultivate the silences, and preserve an open mind. 



72 Man and the Divine Order 

But also turn upon your experiences and note 
their value in relation to the soundest ideals of 
life. The fact that philosophy is temporarily 
secondary to experience does not necessarily 
mean that it is always to be subordinate. Pro- 
fessor James's arraignment of dogmatic theology 
and speculative absolutism need not deter one 
from the pursuit of a broadly inclusive philosophy 
of rationalised experience. Such a philosophy is 
demanded by a description of experience which 
simply acquaints us with its varieties. The de- 
sire is all the stronger to know the meaning of 
such diversity. Thus the present volume not 
only deepens one's faith in religion as a universal 
reality, but arouses a zest for that philosophical 
unity which the book fails to give. 



CHAPTER IV 

PRIMITIVE BELIEFS 

THE most impressive fact in the life of man is 
the universal appearance and persistence 
of beliefs in an invisible reality or spiritual order 
in the face of that which every day and every- 
where seems to show that the material world is 
the beginning and end of all. Formerly, it was 
supposed that there were savage tribes without a 
vestige of belief in religion, and it was positively 
asserted that many peoples were idolatrous and 
atheistical. But scientific men have now become 
sufficiently acquainted with primitive beliefs and 
customs to know that such statements are rashly 
unwarranted. For if there be not a notion of 
deity or a heavenly state, if there be no distinct- 
ively religious rites and customs, there is at least 
an emotional background out of which religion 
emerges. We are warned not to conclude that 
a tribe is idolatrous until we have penetrated be- 
hind the symbol to the emotional attitude. 
Spencer and others have tried to reduce these 
primitive indications of religion to beliefs in 

73 



74 Man and the Divine Order 

ghosts, but such attempts are hopelessly anti- 
quated, now that scientific men have actually 
lived among savage tribes and appreciatively 
studied their rites. No sectarian religious de- 
votee would have found such evidence, for he 
would have been prejudiced in favour of his par- 
ticular doctrine. It remained for impartial stu- 
dents of human nature, who were willing to make 
great sacrifices, to discover the real intent of 
savage life. The results are already so encourag- 
ing that we may look for constantly increasing 
evidences of religion. Sometimes the belief in 
immortality has been absent. The appearance 
of myths concerning a deity has often been long 
delayed. But such ideas are no less impressive 
when they come late. Indeed the power of re- 
ligion is the more striking the greater the develop- 
ment of man, since, the longer delayed, the more 
resistance it must meet. 

The great fact is that when the religious con- 
sciousness has once appeared it grows and per- 
sists and constantly reappears in new forms. 
Those who have the breadth of mind and the 
sanity of scholarship to penetrate beneath the 
diverse forms, ceremonies, symbols, and doc- 
trines assure us that they find practically the 
same religious evidences the world over. That is, 
the great facts are those of the inner life, belief in 
an unseen order of some sort, belief in the soul as 



Primitive Beliefs 75 

the possessor of life apart from the vitality of the 
body, some notion of a future state, and an idea 
of a Creator or Supreme Being. Doctrines and 
terms often differ greatly. The modes of life are 
often strikingly dissimilar. There is abundant 
ground for dispute as long as mere terminology is 
considered. But when the sympathetic student 
penetrates behind the forms he finds the essence 
practically the same. The time will come when 
primitive myths will no longer be set down as 
superstitions, when the expressions " pagan re- 
ligion," ''heathen," and the like will never again 
be heard. 

It is, of course, easy to read modern ideas into 
ancient times. But it is safer to attribute genuine 
religious sentiments to crude ceremonies than to 
put them down as atheistical, and turn coldly 
away. The saying that there is "nothing new 
under the sun" is strikingly confirmed when we 
turn from our modern world to such a picture of 
primitive life as a scientific treatise on anthro- 
pology contains. For example, take the classic 
work on the subject with which the studies of 
many a modern seeker after ancient truth has 
begun, Tylor's Primitive Culture. The most re- 
markable characteristic of the primitive life into 
which that book admits us is the intimacy with 
which man regarded the spiritual world. Or, 
rather, one might say that because the entire 



76 Man and the Divine Order 

world was peopled by primitive man with spirits, 
man knew only his spiritual world. For not only 
did man find himself beset in his dreams by spir- 
its, attended by them from birth to death, with 
the prospect that he would be accompanied by 
them to a domain beyond death, but he peopled 
the visible world with spirits. This is a very 
remarkable fact, I say, since the a priori sup- 
position is that the " animal man" would seek 
decidedly physical explanations. 

It is natural to suppose that materialism was 
one of the earliest forms of human belief. Yet 
the evidence shows that man did not judge the 
world by the fact that it contained stones and 
masses of apparently motionless substance. Nor 
did he note the physical regularity which scien- 
tific men have since called " mechanical." The 
primitive myths and other remains indicate that 
man did not distinguish between himself and 
nature. He was probably more inclined to pro- 
ject his own emotions into nature than to import 
the idea of matter into his inner life. Neither in 
the inner world nor in the outer did he detect any 
such regularity as astronomers later discovered by 
the study of the heavens. Hence the somewhat 
capricious play of his own emotions seems to have 
given him his type of thought, his way of regard- 
ing the world. It was naturally the poetic or 
myth-making tendency which became prominent, 



Primitive Beliefs 77 

rather than what we should call the scientific in- 
terest. Therefore materialism had no place. 

It is well to remember and repeat that man's 
earliest conceptions of unity were probably so far 
unlike what we should call either poetry, religion, 
or science, that we ought rather to say that out 
of these primitive conceptions the beginnings of 
various branches of knowledge gradually ap- 
peared. In India, to this day, the theory which 
corresponds to religion and science is still one. 
In the Western world the differentiation between 
religion and science has been such as to lead to 
violent warfare. Thus, side by side with the 
attitude towards the world which regards it as a 
testing-ground for the soul, we find a purely 
logical interest which throws religion entirely 
out of account. The typical logician is not con- 
cerned to study life as he finds it and ask himself 
if his facts are true to all sides of human experi- 
ence. He is in search of formal consistency, a way 
of thinking about things which shall involve no 
logical fallacy. Thus he marks off for himself a 
small segment of human thought, and is content 
to regard that as the whole. If you ask him 
what, assurance his conclusions give that the 
world will come out right, he can say nothing; 
for that is not his interest. On the other hand, 
the religious devotee is so sure that all things are 
ordered for the best that he feels under no obliga- 



78 Man and the Divine Order 

tion to examine his logical processes to see if he 
have committed a fallacy in reasoning. 

Thus the tendency of civilised thought is to- 
ward sharp differentiation, as contrasted with the 
poetically animistic whole of primitive man. For 
the empiricist, life is only regarded as a unity in 
case he holds that life consists of one experience, 
howbeit that experience is a mixture of conflicting 
factors. He believes in the world because he has 
experience of the world. He believes in truth 
because he holds that experience can be inter- 
preted. 

For primitive man, the world must have been 
a vast theatre for the interplay of beliefs which 
were in large part coloured by his own moods. 
Such a study of primitive life as Andrew Lang's 
The Making of Religion, with its numerous refer- 
ences to recent investigations, shows that there is 
scarcely anything in our modern spiritualistic, 
theosophical, wonder-working age which is not 
paralleled by occult beliefs which were almost 
universally held in savage times. This remark- 
able fact as emphatically calls for an explanation 
as the most recent developments of belief in the 
unseen. It is evidently a question of human na- 
ture, not a question of life at any one epoch. To 
explain it at any given time is in large part to ac- 
count for it at all times. 

The reader cannot fail to be impressed by the 



Primitive Beliefs 79 

rationality with which Tylor develops the ani- 
mistic explanation of this great fact. 1 Yet, as 
plausible as animism is when applied to primitive 
man's relation to nature, applied to the inner life 
it tends to minimise the realities of religion. It 
is not difficult to understand why, as Tylor tells 
us, " savages talk quite seriously to beasts alive or 
dead, offer them homage, ask pardon when it is 
their painful duty to hunt and kill them." But 
Tylor places so much emphasis on dreams and il- 
lusory psychic states that there seems to be no 
sufficient basis left for the more genuine phe- 
nomena of life. The widespread evidences of 
belief in the soul, in second sight, in the gods, and 
a life after death indicate that the original expe- 
riences out of which these beliefs grew were far 
from being illusions. It was undoubtedly be- 
cause man was strikingly aware of his inner life 
that he persistently and universally objectified 
that life and attributed the same reality to every- 
thing about him. If we would really account for 
the remarkable facts of primitive beliefs we must 
sympathetically endeavour to reconstruct the life 
of those ancient times. We should be as fair in 
our treatment of myths and stories of second sight 
and wonder-working as in our studies of the most 
enlightened religious devotees. 

It is, of course, difficult to conceive of the 

1 Primitive Culture, chapters on Animism. 



So Man and the Divine Order 

state of mind out of which the animistic interpre- 
tation of the world was developed. For modern 
thought has taught us to view things in a clear 
light. To the savage the earth must have been 
enveloped in a hazy indistinctness, where none of 
the distinctions which we make had been noted. 
The world was one in a sense which has probably 
never been equalled. Man as apart from nature, 
and nature apart from man, had not been discov- 
ered. Instinct, feeling, and impulse were doubt- 
less the prime factors in man's life. Thought 
played comparatively little part. There were 
facts enough which demanded thought ; the great 
world which we think about was there. But that 
which thought deals with when it draws distinc- 
tions and discovers laws, had not yet attracted 
attention. 

For our present purposes, the inquiry begins 
with the first awakenings of wondering thought. 
Out of the confused mass of cosmic impressions 
certain aspects of life began to stand out in con- 
trast to others. The regular sequence (as yet 
unnoted) of natural phenomena was (as per- 
ceived) interrupted by some unusual event, such 
as the killing of a member of the tribe by a fero- 
cious animal, the accidental fall of a man over a 
cliff. In due time, the accumulated memory of 
such events undoubtedly led man to speculate 
concerning their origin. 



Primitive Beliefs 81 

It is hardly probable that primitive man be- 
lieved in causation as we understand the term. 
But he must early have begun to associate certain 
sequences with certain actions, so that by per- 
forming the action he could attain the sequence — 
except when something interfered. With inter- 
ference doubtless came wonder and speculation. 
Finding himself balked, the consciousness natu- 
rally grew that there were other powers besides 
himself. Moreover, certain disturbances within 
the human organism frequently upset all ex- 
pectations. Man felt aches and pains, and con- 
tracted various diseases. His fellow-men and his 
children died. There were enemies to contend 
with, and wild beasts to avoid. There were many 
mysterious phenomena, and there was much that 
he could not control. 

In general, we may rationally conceive of 
primitive man as endeavouring to realise certain 
desires and accomplish definite results. He felt 
the pangs of hunger and sought to appease his 
desire. Animals were near which he could prey 
upon, and he naturally did not like to be thwarted 
in his desires. Anything which thwarted him, of 
course, provoked first wonder, then an attempt to 
adjust himself to that which was apparently the 
cause of interference. The desire to carry out his 
plans doubtless had much to do with the exercises 
of a quasi-religious character which give the first 

6 



82 Man and the Divine Order 

evidences of belief in supernatural powers. The 
quasi-religious activities of the arrow worshippers 
of Ceylon, for example, are scarcely distinguish- 
able from endeavours to get the better of powers 
that might thwart the hunter. The primitive life 
out of which religion grew was doubtless in such 
cases largely a personal affair and bore little refer- 
ence to anything higher. 

Mystified by various occurrences which inter- 
fered with his expectations, what was more natural 
than that man should try to explain the unusual 
by reference to other facts drawn from different 
departments of his life? For example, man had 
frequently been awed by various natural up- 
heavals, such as earthquakes and floods. He was 
perplexed in his efforts to explain sleep, his dreams 
during sleep, his visions, and other strange ex- 
periences, some of which came to him personally ; 
others came enlarged by hearsay. He was doubt- 
less as eager to account for the occult subjective 
phenomena as for the objective phenomena of 
nature, death, disease, and the like. For him, the 
world was so truly one thing, that it probably did 
not occur to him to classify his experiences and 
seek one explanation for one type, another for 
another. To this general confusion at the outset 
is doubtless attributable the mystical explana- 
tions of the objective, or natural, in terms of the 
subjective, or psychical. 



Primitive Beliefs 83 

Of the widespread existence of unusual sub- 
jective phenomena there is abundant evidence. 
Primitive man not only had dreams and visions 
of various sorts, but believed in ghosts, obsession, 
demoniacal possession, disease caused by obsession, 
and the like. Even the rude Veddahs of Ceylon 
believed in guardianship by the spirits of the 
dead. 1 These spirit companions were supposed 
to be ever watchful, caring for the sick, aiding the 
hunter, and paying visits in dreams. It is clear 
that man had abundant evidences of this sort to 
draw upon in the myths and folk-lore of his 
tribe. 

On general principles, there is reason to believe 
that what is present now in human life was present 
in primitive times in some form. Unless we pro- 
ceed on this assumption it is difficult to account 
for the later developments of the religious life. 
If we make the assumption we obviously do 
greater justice to primitive life. For the wide- 
spread evidence of beliefs of a semi-religious na- 
ture indicates that for savage man at least there 
was something present which was very real. The 
further such an hypothesis as Spencer's " ghost 
theory" is carried the more problems are raised. 
We are then compelled to explain the greater 
by the lesser, to account for the higher by the 
lower. Whereas, if we adopt the hypothesis that 

1 Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii., 117. 



84 Man and the Divine Order 

the greater was present at least in a potential form, 
we have a sufficient basis of explanation. 

Professor Le Conte argues that "pure, unmixed 
error does not live to trouble us long." l When 
we study the myths of Greece we are amazed at 
the closeness to laws of nature and life as a whole 
which is exemplified in these stories — so fre- 
quently dismissed as " inventions" or as of philo- 
logical value only. Myths are often prophetical. 
Some of the earliest explanations are the sanest 
— so the latest research shows. And while one 
should be cautious in attributing modern wisdom 
to the ancients, while the men of old may not 
have consciously known their wisdom, they may 
have had a feeling experience which brought them 
nearer to the heart of things than the usual theo- 
ries assumed. 

At least this is a defensible point of view, namely, 
that (i) the realities of life were present to primi- 
tive man; that (2) his theory of life was based as 
much on real religious experience as upon medita- 
tion in regard to his contact with nature, or his 
more subjective and partly illusory experiences; 
and (3) that therefore our hypothetical explana- 
tion of his world-scheme must at least be as broad 
as his total feeling-life suggests. 

Precisely what the elements of religion are 
would not be easy to say, particularly as religion 

1 Evolution and its Relation to Religious Thought. 



Primitive Beliefs 85 

runs over into other departments of life. Were 
we to undertake a minute investigation we should 
encounter certain marked differences of opinion 
in regard to experiences usually classified as 
''mystical." But this much we may safely as- 
sume, namely, that there exists what is known as 
the religious consciousness which has before it 
certain well-defined objects. If it be true, as 
many religious writers assume, that the soul is in 
immediate relation with God y and that, therefore, 
there is reality in these higher experiences; if, 
moreover, God be conceived as eternal and omni- 
present, then we may unqualifiedly declare that 
God was present to all primitive men. God could 
not have been introduced at some point in evolution. 

It is true, there has been an evolution of re- 
ligious consciousness and of man's knowledge of 
that consciousness. But that may be largely 
growth in thought rather than in feeling ; and it 
does not show that there are now any new quali- 
ties in relation to the human soul. 

If we compare the modern man of the higher 
education with primitive man, we find that the 
advance has been largely in capacity of thought 
rather than in capacity of feeling. In fact, it may 
be doubted whether the modern man has half the 
capacity for feeling. What man has gained in 
intellectual power he may have lost in sensibility. 

Now, it is unquestionably feeling which brings 



86 Man and the Divine Order 

us closest to the original experiences of life. 
Feeling may not be intelligent or discriminative, 
but it has the reality, the immediacy. This is 
doubtless the reason why primitive man was 
closer to nature. He yielded himself fully to 
the play of his emotions. He was probably 
moved by very violent emotional reactions. 

There is reason to believe, then, that whatever 
reality there is now in man's psychic and spiritual 
experiences was also felt by primitive man. It is 
possible that, even assuming a measure of reality 
in the belief in communion with spirits, man was 
more conscious of such influences then than he is 
now. A real experience might now be explained 
away as an hallucination simply because so little 
of its reality could actually be felt by a modern 
intellectually developed person. 

Moved by certain spiritual activities, man gave 
and still gives the best explanation he can. The 
fact that the explanations are fantastical does 
not prove that there is no reality in the experiences. 
In general terms, one may also argue, as already 
suggested, that man does not "invent" a myth 
out of nothing. Psychologically, a pure inven- 
tion is, in the first place, impossible. The fact 
that, as anthropology shows, the same myths are 
held by widely differing peoples, in different 
climes and ages, and among different races, in- 
dicates that there is something in human experi- 



Primitive Beliefs 87 

ence corresponding to the myths. The myths 
may be absurd and fantastic. But that shows 
the crudity of human terminology, — it does not 
prove that the experiences were hallucinations. 

We are apt to look down upon the American 
Indian who reverences his totem. But when the 
young warrior goes forth alone to find the totem 
spirit, his emotion may be fully as sacred to him 
as the consecration to philanthropy is to a civil- 
ised Christian worker. 

We do not need to look as far up in the scale of 
being as human life to find evidences of higher 
powers than those which are classifiable under 
the head of the five physical senses. The homing 
instincts of the bee, the pig, the pigeon, the dog, 
etc., are evidences of a finer sense. Occasionally 
in all ages there have been those who have become 
known as gifted with various occult powers such 
as clairvoyance and ''second sight." 1 There 
may be much or little in such reports. But as- 
suming that there is but little, we may rationally 
conclude that primitive man, with his greater 
powers of receptivity, or feeling, enjoyed the ben- 
efits of these powers to a degree equally great, 
if not greater. We may with as good right con- 
clude that there was as much reality in them. 
The hypothesis of the subliminal self proposed by 
Myers offers a scientific basis for the explanation 

1 See Lang, The Making of Religion, p. 70 et seq. 



SS Man and the Divine Order 

of such phenomena. Whether objectively real 
or not, such phenomena may have a basis in the 
greater activities of the subconscious mind; and 
the chances are that as these hidden activities are 
better understood there will be a tendency to 
attribute reality to psychic experiences which 
have been dismissed as unreal simply because 
scientific men lack the hypothesis by which to 
account for them. 

It is possible, then, that the savage belief in 
wizards, medicine-men, and the like may have 
had a real basis, namely, the unusual ability dis- 
played by those who possessed a large subliminal 
region. Possibly many of these primitive seers 
did actually divine things in a number of in- 
stances; hence their reputations grew. On this 
hypothesis, it would be easy to account for the 
appearance and development of magic. Some 
who actually had divined things correctly would 
try to repeat the performance by introducing all 
sorts of devices. When these devices "took" 
with the credulous, the wizards would naturally 
resort to them more and more. They would thus 
give more attention to magic and depart farther 
from the few real experiences which started the 
whole development. Others looking on, but 
possessing no occult power, would imitate the 
diviners. 

It was natural that the highest principle which 



Primitive Beliefs 89 

man found within himself should be attributed to 
nature; that when unusual events occurred he 
should offer a spiritual explanation; and that he 
should resort to various devices, magical and re- 
ligious, to attain his ends when thwarted. But 
upon this hypothesis there would be more reason 
for the belief than on Tylor's hallucination theory. 
Meditation on the phenomena of nature evidently 
played a very prominent part in the growth of 
primitive man's view of the world. The theory 
took an animistic turn, to be sure, but on a natural- 
istic basis. Just as there may have been real 
experiences at the foundation of man's psychic 
theories and myths, so the myths in regard to 
nature had a real basis. Tylor does not, of course, 
deny this, but he does not lay sufficient stress 
upon it. 

For example, take the Hindoo god Varuna. 
Human characteristics were later attributed to 
him, but originally the natural basis was probably 
the ground of belief in him. Certain sequences 
were observed in the activities of the heavens ; for 
example, the coming of rain. Varuna corresponds 
in part to the Greek Neptune, and in the end of 
the Vedic period, when the gods were waning and 
other conceptions were coming forward, Varuna 
is still permitted to hold this primitive function. 
This indicates that it was in some respects at least 
his original function. The natural basis seems to 



90 Man and the Divine Order 

have preceded and outlived the human and moral 
character. The moral character may have been 
the outgrowth of the natural basis: Varuna may 
have become the god of order in general because 
he was first conceived as the god of a very im- 
portant natural sequence, the coming of rain. 
The origin may, then, have been largely objective. 
Reflection upon Varuna 's greatness as the god of 
order may have led the way to the larger concep- 
tion of world-order or unity which made his exist- 
ence superfluous. We would then have a basis of 
belief in a Supreme Being evolved from the study 
of nature. 

One is inclined to believe that primitive man's 
belief in God, in spiritual power, had a larger 
origin, then, than the more limited animistic 
theory would have us believe. If man felt a 
higher principle in himself, if actually in touch 
with spiritual power, he would naturally regard 
the universe as partaking of that power. His 
theory would not then be merely man writ large, 
or his subjective states objectified. It would be 
a combination of objective and subjective ele- 
ments, taking their clue from the phenomena of 
the soul. In other words, the theory of the soul 
itself was obviously not modelled on the expe- 
rience with "ghosts," but was a more general 
product of man's daily life. 

Meditation on moving objects would naturally 



Primitive Beliefs 9 1 

play a part in the development of this belief. 
Objects were seen to move, but what moved 
them was not seen. Man did not see the life in 
the body. He did not see the forces of nature. 
He felt the effects of the forces. He felt the life 
coursing within him. After a member of the 
tribe had died, he naturally associated the life 
which had moved the friend's body with the soul 
which displayed all these mysterious powers. A 
creature of feeling, feeling was naturally more 
real to him than aught else. What more natural 
than that he should offer an explanation in terms 
of feeling, the invisible ? And what more natural 
than for him to combine the feelings of awe, fear, 
etc., in the presence of nature, e. g., thunderstorms, 
with the more subjective feelings which he asso- 
ciated with the soul ? 

The widespread belief in totemism shows that 
primitive man conceived a close relation to exist 
between himself and nature. This alone is strong 
evidence that he held a rather broad view of life, 
neither a subjective nor an objective theory alone. 

It is noticeable that among one of the most 
primitive peoples, the Veddahs of Ceylon, there is 
a belief in a general supernatural power which 
may be invoked. This would indicate that such 
a belief may appear very early in human develop- 
ment. The magical efficiency attributed to stones 
by the Melanesians is another illustration. Plants 



92 Man and the Divine Order 

were thought by primitive men generally to be an- 
imated. 1 Rivers, stones, trees, and weapons were 
addressed, propitiated, and punished. In gen- 
eral, nature was moved by unseen powers, and 
when the soul was sometimes identified with the 
pulse, the heart, the breath, etc., this was ob- 
viously because life had there been observed to 
be most vigorous. All these observations of the 
phenomena of life in nature as akin to himself may 
have played a part in the growth of man's con- 
ception. The subjective experiences on which so 
much stress has been placed may have been at 
times far less prominent. Belief in the reality of 
ghosts doubtless strengthened the conclusions 
drawn from observation of nature. But the more 
common experiences of daily objective life con- 
ceivably played a greater part. 

The conception of a god, held later, is obviously 
too large a doctrine to be traced to subjective ex- 
periences as the primal source. If, according to 
the hypothesis of this chapter, man actually felt 
the presence of God, or of spirits, or a general 
religious or spiritual power, we may rationally re- 
gard his whole feeling-life as the true ground of 
belief in spiritual reality, and hence of a spiritual 
explanation of unfamiliar events. 

It may now be argued that primitive man's 
belief in the soul as capable of separating itself 

1 Tylor, Primitive Culture, i., 474. 



Primitive Beliefs 93 

from the body points rather to the subjective ex- 
periences as most influential. The belief in a 
future existence was widespread. It was sup- 
posed that the soul travelled during sleep. Some 
tribes thought that man had several souls. Even 
sickness among some tribes, e. g., the Algonquin 
Indians, 1 was accounted for on the supposition 
that man's " shadow" was unsettled or detached 
from his body. And there is much more evi- 
dence of a similar character. Souls that return, 
for example, are said to possess greater power, 
not alone to torment but to work wonders. The 
belief in transmigration is strong evidence that 
the soul was held to be an invisible being of 
greater power, such that it could even return to 
fleshly existence and complete the life which was 
unfinished when death intervened. 

But the crucial question is, Is man's belief in 
the soul as portrayed by writers like Tylor suf- 
ficient to account for all that man found in nature 
and for his belief in God? On this supposition 
there is a wide chasm to bridge between the be- 
lief in the soul in Tylor 's sense and the belief in 
God where the ancestor worship and polytheistic 
links are lacking. Lang gives strong evidence to 
show that the conception of God is decidedly 
different. 2 For example, God is conceived as a 
maker, or creator. There seems to have been 

1 Tylor, i., 436. 2 The Making of Religion, chap. xi. 



94 Man and the Divine Order 

much primitive argument from design. Words 
for " Father," in the supreme sense, are often 
found. It is obviously an easier explanation to 
deem the God-theory a product of man's total life 
than to regard it as the result of a restricted sub- 
jective portion. If God was present to primitive 
consciousness, God Himself was the chief reason 
for belief in God, and hence of a spiritual ex- 
planation of things. Primitive man may truly 
be said to be " feeling after Him." Again, we find 
evidence of real experience of a higher nature in 
the fact that there are evidences of unselfishness, 
of a moral consciousness. 1 The sense of sacred- 
ness, already referred to, is further evidence. 
This element has been doubted by some travellers 
because they were unable to obtain definite an- 
swers to their questions on this point. But, 
assuming that there was deep reality in these ex- 
periences for those who had them, one would not 
expect even the savage to wear his heart on his 
sleeve. Moreover, those who have dwelt sym- 
pathetically among primitive tribes have in due 
course begun to understand this element of sa- 
credness, and to realise the difficulty of discover- 
ing it when the inquiry is confessedly designed to 
make the subject of it talk about his own religious 
emotions. 

Even among the Melanesians there is a feeling 

1 Lang, op. cit., 176 et seq. 



Primitive Beliefs 95 

of reverence for the supernatural power supposed to 
reside in stones. Are such sentiments due to the 
mere feeling of awe, or to the awakening of a 
higher Power in men? 

Finally, evidences of intellectual development 
are not lacking. Man early began to meditate 
upon the phenomena of his daily life, and to give 
evidences of growth in metaphysical explanation. 
Scientific travellers testify to the curiosity of 
savages. Lang contends for the curiosity of 
primitive man. 1 That man was capable of mak- 
ing explanations of what occurred is conclusively 
shown by his purposive acts in relation to the 
natural forces which he sought to control. The 
fact of curiosity points to the same tendency in 
man. Now, if he could argue from the facts of 
his subjective visions, why could he not argue 
from the facts of nature as a whole? Why con- 
fine his reasonings to so small a beginning? 

Had man possessed a physics and a chemistry, 
had he been better acquainted with anatomy, he 
might have proposed a more physical explanation 
for things. But he evidently reasoned from that 
with which he was most familiar. His inner life 
was the centre of reactions, called out, as it 
were, in two directions. Thunderstorms and 
other natural phenomena of a startling charac- 
ter aroused cosmic awe. The death of comrades 

1 Myth, Ritual, and Religion, 85-89. 



96 Man and the Divine Order 

brought more personal emotion. Experiences 
with second sight and divination brought emotion 
of another type. And from the obscure world of 
dreams came airy shapes which produced equally 
strong reactions. Then, in turn, his whole sen- 
tient life reacted to produce a world-conception, 
resulting from this multiform mass. The first 
emotions were varied; the conceptions springing 
from them were naturally varied. Some were 
purely personal, and the reactions had personal 
aims in view, namely, success in hunting and 
fighting; whereas others were cosmic, and led 
to cosmic thoughts. Still others may have arisen 
from immediate relation with the Divine Being, 
hence they suggested the conceptions of Maker, 
Creator, Father. There was a difference in the 
reactionary concepts because the feeling-ground 
was different in these cases. There was a gap 
between theories of ghosts and the conception of 
God because there was a gap in the feeling ex- 
perience; a wide divergence between the alleged 
contemplation of a "ghost," and the real sense of 
awe, reverence, which inspired the religious life. 

On this hypothesis, it would in every case be 
the feeling experience which would be the prime 
reality. Religion might then precede magic in 
many instances, and precede the cruder repulsive 
myths ; since the attempt to word the feeling was 
naturally symbolical at best. Handed on to less 



Primitive Beliefs 97 

religious souls, the symbols would naturally grow 
more coarse and crude, and in time become asso- 
ciated with the fantastic. Even in later times, 
e. g., Buddha's life, extravagant stories grew up 
round a prophet. 

It might now be argued that in endeavouring 
to account for primitive man's beliefs I have 
fallen into the common error and read into primi- 
tive life that which is found only in highly civil- 
ised life. To this I reply that I do not attribute 
the fulness of the later religious consciousness to 
primitive man, but the germs of this conscious- 
ness were conceivably present. That primitive 
man really gave a spiritual explanation is a fact. 
Granted the fact, how shall we account for it? 
The cause must be equal to the effect. The hypo- 
thesis of Tylor appears to be inadequate. We 
must, then, extend the horizon. 

The critic might, then, contend that by using 
such a vague word as "spiritual" the foregoing 
argument is subject to manifold ambiguities. I 
admit that the term has a wide connotation ; but 
the attitude toward the world which I am now 
seeking to characterise is confessedly vague. Just 
because man was unable in primitive times to 
distinguish himself from nature, to draw lines of 
demarcation between the material and imma- 
terial, his explanation assumed the form which 
may very well be called " spiritual." The term, 



98 Man and the Divine Order 

then, stands for that which is invisible, in the most* 
general sense. According to the thesis here pre- 
sented, man explained events by reference to the 
spiritual just because he was more impressed by 
the invisible. In his sleep, in his waking state, 
on usual and unusual days, in the presence of a 
storm and in the presence of death, the most real 
object for him was an invisible somewhat which, 
whether one or many, personal or impersonal, 
stood as the source of his experiences. Rightly 
or wrongly, the cause was to be found beyond the 
tangibly material. It was something mysterious, 
awe-inspiring, wonderful. Out of this sense of 
the invisible grew his conceptions of the soul, the 
world, the gods, and, finally, the Father. 

I am not assuming teleology. I am not ven- 
turing to say that God was revealing Himself to 
primitive man as the first step in a long series of 
revelations culminating in the Jewish dispensa- 
tion and Christianity. The problem of teleology 
would take us too far afield. The contention is 
simply for the natural basis of such religious con- 
sciousness as the records which have come down 
to us from primitive times compel us to posit and 
account for. The minimum measure of that con- 
sciousness would seem to compel us to posit a 
greater degree of reality in primitive man's life 
than is admitted by anthropological writers who 
place stress on ghosts, visions, and illusory sub- 



Primitive Beliefs 99 

jective experiences. The purely animistic hypo- 
thesis suggests as many questions as it seems to 
settle. For example, ghosts are associated with 
death. The idea of the soul as conceived by ani- 
mism is largely associated with the idea of death 
and the hereafter. But God is worshipped in a 
way in which ghosts are not. God is conceived 
as existing before death invaded the world. Men 
became subject to death by the infringement of 
some "taboo." 

Death, then, was simply one of the events to 
be accounted for on a larger basis. The hypo- 
thesis here advocated meets these larger demands 
and solves some of the enigmas of animism. 
While not, then, wholly agreeing with Lang, one 
would be inclined to give a prominent place to his 
arguments as preparing the way for the larger 
view. When we possess greater knowledge of 
man's later religious consciousness, and of all ex- 
periences classified as " spiritualistic," we shall un- 
doubtedly be in a better position to understand 
some of the primitive religious myths. Mean- 
while the present discussion is offered as an essay 
in the larger field. 



CHAPTER V 

THE LARGER FAITH 

A FEW years ago I met a sailor whose ship had 
encountered a terrible cyclone at sea. The 
ship stood in the cyclone centre, or calm spot, 
round which the elements raged with irresistible 
fury. In any other position the ship would un- 
doubtedly have foundered in the gale. Yet from 
this secure vantage-point one could look out on 
the storm in perfect serenity. The sturdy con- 
fidence with which my informant described the 
impressive scene bespoke the calmness which it 
had inspired, and one felt for the moment the 
seaman's reverential trust in his ship. 

It would be difficult to find a more graphic il- 
lustration of that spiritual calm spot amidst the 
storms of life which is called poise, equanimity. 
It is typical of the life which is inspired by faith 
in the divine order, a faith which is voiced by the 
scriptural quotation, "Thou wilt keep him in 
perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee." 

The thought is familiar, and such faith is uni- 
versally commended as ''beautiful." Even those 



The Larger Faith 101 

who do not deem the universe a divine order admit 
the value of a purifying faith which inspires calm- 
ness. But it is one thing to have a unifying in- 
sight and another to live in conformity with it. 
Many are able to argue from the facts of life to 
establish their personal faith, while others possess 
practical faith in more religious form, but lack the 
rationale of it. We have had systems of thought 
which emphasised the calm spot and practically 
ignored the storms of life; and systems which 
enlarged upon the storms, but neglected the calm 
spot. Many who still cling to old theological 
standards find it impossible to harmonise their 
spiritual faith with modern scientific knowledge. 
Others have made a sort of religion of modern 
science, but still hunger for spiritual food. Thus 
there is need of a larger system which shall not 
only satisfy head and heart, but provide a more 
practical faith to live by. 

To the majority of men Emerson's profound 
saying perfectly applies: "Our faith comes in 
moments, our vice is habitual." Our faith is apt 
to be a vague, intermittent feeling, a faith for 
Sundays or for periods of financial depression. 
We fail to think it out to the end to see what it 
logically implies, what it means, to be consistently 
faithful. Thus our actions confess that we do 
not fully believe our own doctrine, or that we are 
unwilling to meet the tests which really prove it 



102 Man and the Divine Order 

to be faith. Doubts intrude with which we are in- 
competent to deal because we have never taken 
our faith up into the understanding. Yet there is 
as much to be learned from the discovery of our 
failures as from the study of those whose lives 
best illustrate the simplicity of faith. If we are 
sometimes unable in these modern days to hold to 
or refashion the faith of our youth, it is because 
we have not thus analysed our failures to see what 
lies beyond. 

It is actual study of life in quest of an ultimate 
goal, which shows what is meant by belief in the 
divine order. It is the life itself, the conscious- 
ness of something higher, that is the prime reality. 
In the end we must reckon with that great fact, 
and come to closer terms with mysticism. But 
there is also a profound lesson to be learned from 
the sympathetic study of man's attempts to ex- 
press that supreme fact. Both the intellectual 
and the spiritual failures and successes have sig- 
nificance for us. Fortunate shall we be if, while 
studying either half of the problem, we forget not 
the other half. The great fault, alike with the 
spiritual and the intellectual devotees of religion, 
is that they do not pursue their special doctrine 
to the end, to its transition into the territory of 
the opposite school. 

How quickly the believer in a special form of 
unity confesses himself a dualist when he steps out- 



The Larger Faith 103 

side of his specialism or begins to apply his faith ! 
'■The orthodox Christian of the old type professed 
faith in one God, yet believed in a devil and the 
disruptive power of sin. Many earnest Christians 
are so concerned lest life's voyage end ere the souls 
of the ' ' lost ' ' are saved that they forget the true 
significance of God's love. The incentive which 
prompts them is anxiety, and this is really dis- 
trust in God; it is equivalent to the belief that 
the divine order ends with this life, that the love 
of God is limited. They forget that according 
to their faith the love of God is continuous, om- 
nipresent, eternal. Were they consistent they 
would adopt a wholly different attitude. In- 
stead of approaching the so-called heathen as 
"lost," they would address them as "sons of 
God" needing brotherly help to recognise the 
divine order, from which in reality no soul is ever 
separated. They would take Jesus at his word 
when he said that "not a sparrow falleth without 
the Father"; they would trust God to the end. 
But what an attainment ! How few really act as 
if they believed that " God is in His world " ; that 
God, not man, is at the helm of events ; that God, 
not man, is primarily responsible. 

There are many popular attitudes which show 
that professed faith in God is rather distrust in 
Him. By far the greater number of these are 
characterised by anxiety about storms that never 



104 Man and the Divine Order 

come. Far more stress is put upon the accidents 
of the weather than upon the steady, even flow 
of that resistless tide of life which bears us safely 
on from day to night, from night to day, from 
summer to autumn, and from winter to spring, 
with a regularity so punctual that we forget that 
each moment furnishes new reason for faith in 
God. 

Again, the attitude of many ethical culturists, 
although supposed to be inspired by faith in the 
integrity of the moral law, is practically a con- 
fession of atheism, strange as it may seem. Sup- 
pose, for example, it is a time when the nation is 
plunged in cruel warfare, the integrity of the con- 
stitution is threatened, and all the miseries of the 
inglorious empires of the past are imminent. It 
seems to the troubled observer that the country 
is going to ruin. Accordingly the ethical philo- 
sopher bitterly condemns the supposed villains of 
the play, anxiety is heralded abroad, and class 
feeling is intensified. Meanwhile, where is God? 
Where is law, order, the great calm spot of the 
universe? May it be possible that there is a 
deeper meaning in this strife, that it is the break- 
ing up of an old order? 

This is no defence of empire, of injustice, or 
usurpation, nor is it a depreciation of true ethical 
sentiment. It is one of the sanest signs of the 
times that the sense of justice is growing, and 



The Larger Faith 105 

surely no one would say a word to impede its 
growth. But it is one thing to have our sense of 
justice outraged, and another to look beyond in- 
justice to its relationship with the moral order) 
As noble as it is to be stirred by the fire of moral 
zeal, it is nobler to have constant faith in God. 
The anxious personal attitude is apt to be ex- 
tremely short-sighted. It overlooks the mani- 
fold readjustments of natural law whereby 
wrongs tend to right themselves, and errors to be 
shaped into truth. It places emphasis almost 
wholly upon man, not upon law, system. It is 
thus faithless to its own ethical ideal; forgetful, 
too, of the source of the moral law. 

It requires but slight knowledge of history to 
show that there is a greater power working 
through kings and presidents, senates and po- 
litical parties than any single class of men are 
capable of yielding. Men form new parties to 
offset the old. Meanwhile, a new party forms to 
offset that. A crime which demands unsparing 
condemnation when viewed by itself and from the 
outside, may be turned to national account by 
the incoming party. 

.The real question, then, is this: Is the universe 
regulated by man, or is it guided by the love and 
wisdom of God? If it is a divine order, all 
philosophies are vain which leave God out; all 
methods of social reform are futile except those 



106 Man and the Divine Order 

which co-operate with the steady march of events 
from lower to higher, whereby the social ideal is 
progressively realised. If anywhere in the uni- 
verse there is fate, it is here : the flow of the divine 
tide from worse to better, never pausing, never 
faltering, granting full freedom to men, yet 
achieving its ends despite any obstacle; helped, 
not hindered, by human opposition, warfare, 
struggle, and defeat.) 

Or, let us illustrate by the intense discontent of 
those who take the labour problem to heart. Per- 
haps this discontent is playing a helpful part in 
our social development. If so, it will doubtless 
be duly counterbalanced and assimilated. But 
if any one in these days is out in the cyclone in- 
stead of in the calm spot, it is the man who is 
whetting class hatred among the labouring classes 
with the proud assurance that he is serving just- 
ice. There are surely labour problems in abund- 
ance. God knows that the whole social world 
groaneth and travaileth under the weight of the 
labouring man's burden. But how shall these 
social problems be solved? Is it consistent with 
faith in the divine order to try to pull society apart 
from the outside and rearrange it? Shall these 
problems be solved by abstract reasoning, or shall 
social regeneration come "without observation,' ' 
silently, steadily, without let or hindrance, from 
injustice to justice, from class hatred to class love? 



The Larger Faith 107 

" What ! stand apart and let evolution do it all? " 
scornfully exclaims the revolutionist. "No, not 
evolution," the genuine believer in the divine 
order would reply, "but the Power out of whose 
advancing order evolution from lower to higher 
proceeds." 

We must agree that if that order be complete 
it includes the social organism as surely, yea, far 
more surely, than it includes the entire life of the 
plant from seed to fruit, or that of the animal 
from cell to maturity. To trust in the divine 
order would not be to stand aside and see things 
work. That would be to misunderstand evolu- 
tion, which is not a mechanical device that oper- 
ates without co-operation. The point is, that if 
one believes in a higher order it is inconsistent, 
if not a waste of energy, to try to reform the world 
from outside. The believer in the higher order 
should co-operate with that order in accordance 
with its laws of change. / He should seek causes, 
origins; and substitute for coercion the finer 
energies of education. 

One should not then misjudge, for there may be 
those who are really consistent. (The fact that one 
creates no excitement by one's good works does 
not prove that one is inactive .j For the power 
may be expended in a different way. The right 
hand is not informed of the deeds of the left. 
Fecundative ideas are being sown. When the 



108 Man and the Divine Order 

fruit of these is seen none may be able to tell who 
sowed the seed. 

There are those, however, whose attitude is the 
opposite of the anxious attitude before described. 
In their immoderate reaction from the old con- 
ception of life as a warfare of good and evil, where 
one must constantly fight the good fight, they 
have fallen into optimistic inertia. They believe 
themselves to be monists, yet they are really dual- 
ists. The inner life of repose is one fact, the 
struggling world of social inequalities is another 
fact. The problem of evil is ignored. Laissez- 
faire optimism masquerades as faith and apa- 
thetically lies down in luxurious ease, with the 
complacent affirmation that all will come out right. 
The general statement is made that "the world is 
all right," but nothing is done to benefit society .) 

This is really egoism. Egoism sees the calm 
spot for itself only and rests content. Altruism 
sees it for humanity and is filled with gladness. 
" Invertebrate optimism" knows it only as an 
opinion ; with one who truly possesses it this faith 
is life-giving power. With many, however, ego- 
ism is only a transition stage. No one who has 
really had an intuition of the divine order can long 
remain satisfied and inert. The first impulse of 
those who behold the great truth is to share it 
with the world. The mistake is often one of 
method rather than of insight. . 



The Larger Faith 109 

Let us make the illustration more private and 
near. Imagine yourself adrift in that terrific 
storm which every soul has buffeted, the cyclone 
of physical sensation. Whether engaged in con- 
test with passion, at the mercy of emotion, or 
enveloped in excruciating consciousness of one's 
nerves, everybody knows what it is to be so baf- 
fled that, for the time being, there seems to be 
only the storm; no sunlight, no compensation, 
no higher power to call upon for help. How 
strong is the temptation under such circum- 
stances to yield to fear, to fight the impulse, or 
condemn one's self for having it! Many times 
one sinks more deeply into the trough of the sub- 
jective sea, into the consciousness of sensation, 
until with the despair of the drowning man one 
yields to the impetus of the waves. 

Nothing is more natural than to fight our im- 
pulses, yet nothing is farther from spiritual faith. 
The more severe the experience, the more calm 
and composed should we be. To fight the animal 
within us is to increase the fury of the storm ; but 
to trust, to be calm even when the ship of life is 
apparently about to sink for ever, is to discover 
that oil of peace which stills the troubled waters 
and gradually lessens the fury of the gale. 

When winds are raging o'er the upper ocean 
And billows wild contend with angry roar, 



no Man and the Divine Order 

'T is said, far down beneath the wild commotion, 
That peaceful stillness reigneth evermore. 

In all experiences of life, these alternatives are 
open before us, these two kinds of weather. We 
may rage and foam with the gale, or live in the 
blue sky above, where we may look upon the 
raging elements in perfect peace. From the point 
of view of that faith which is truly faithful there 
is nothing to fear. The storm typifies the world 
of time and space, beyond which is the eternal 
calm spot of the kingdom of God. From below 
all seems dark. From above all is placid, and 
one may well afford to let the storm rage, let it 
subside when it will. For what has the soul to do 
with that? ' The soul's part is to be still and know 
that it is God who is carrying all things forward ; 
to know that one should live in the consciousness 
of the ideal, not in servitude to its birth-pains.) 

Far, far away the world of passion dieth, 
And loving thoughts rise calm and peacefully; 

And no rude storm, how fierce soe'er it flieth, 
Disturbs the soul that dwells, O Lord, in Thee. 

It is not the man who works for immediate re- 
sults, or who makes a noise in the world, who 
exemplifies the true faith, but he whose conduct 
reveals the still, deep, but far more effective 
energy of the spirit. The same is true of genuine 



The Larger Faith 1 1 1 

sympathy. Some people are deemed unsympa- 
thetic because they do not condole and lament. 
But to lament is to steer out into the storm. x > If 
you are to help you must retain the clear vision, 
be where you can command the power which shall 
aid the friend in distress. True love — and that 
is another term for sympathy — seeks to do that 
which is for the loved one's greatest good, whether 
or not it seems to the onlooker to be the greatest. 
And love is wise, it is calm; it is very far from 
being what some mistake for it — that flighty emo- 
tion which is seemingly so sympathetic.) 

In deepest truth this larger faith inspires the 
only real sympathy. It sends forth that conta- 
gious peace which soothes the soul. ( It is a vision 
of the eternal or ideal fitness of things, a source of 
unspeakable joy.) It is a highly developed, com- 
posite mental attitude, absorbing what is best 
in many points of view which lead to it. It is a 
synthesis of the contemplative and the active life. 
( To possess this eternal calm within is to know how 
to act as only the higher wisdom acts.) ^A man 
shall not attain it until he has been torn and 
buffeted, until he knows what it is to doubt and 
struggle, to press far beyond mere belief to the 
point where he actually knows because he has 
lived, — because he is, not merely seems to be, 
poised.} 

In order to show that adequate consciousness 



ii2 Man and the Divine Order 

of the divine order is no mere emotion or feeling, 
we need only ask the test question,! Is the centre 
of the universe comparable to an emotional state? 
Spiritual faith holds that it is not : that it is sta- 
ble, strong, and steady. It is said to be a calm, 
unruffled state where the emotions obey the will's 
behest as a well-disciplined army obeys its gen- 
eral. The universe is organised, and its heart is 
the centre of all organisation. From that cen- 
tre all life goes forth, all events are seen, but 
the centre is not itself swayed by the upheavals 
outside) 

He has lived and thought to little advantage 
who has not learned that no state of mind is more 
deceptive than unscrutinised feeling. No man is 
more apt to go to excess, none is so easily led 
astray, none is so lacking in poise as he who is 
governed by his emotions. Such a man lives in 
the calm spot only when in the presence of a well- 
poised soul. At other times he has no staying 
power. The only staying power for such a man 
must come through the understanding, for it needs 
no argument to show that, as noble as it may be 
to feel or to perceive, it is far nobler to classify 
and discriminate between feelings and perceptions, 
to be not only intuitive but also philosophical^ 

The spirit comes first, but that which is spirit- 
ual is also rational.; The divine order is rational 
through and through. To seek the ultimate rea- 



The Larger Faith 113 

son of things is to enter more deeply into their 
spirit. To be well-poised is both to feel the spirit 
and know the law or reason. Knowledge is power, 
and no knowledge is so potent as acquaintance 
with the deep reason of things whose law is the 
divine order. ; 

( We make permanent progress only so far as we 
understand 5 for emotion may be, and usually is, 
largely superficial and passing, while thought is 
deep and abiding. It is only when we compare 
visions and feelings to learn their law that we 
make them truly our own. We must discriminate 
between feelings in order to know which ones to 
choose as ideals or ends of actions. 

To aspire, to open the soul and worship, is one 
way to enter the calm spot, but the intellectual 
method is as truly another. No result is more 
beneficial than the calm, searching power of phi- 
losophical thought, for by such thinking we mas- 
ter experience, we discover the law, we grasp the 
eternal reason. A point once gained by this pro- 
cess is gained once for all. A new experience may 
deprive you of your poise, but it cannot rob you 
of your knowledge. Suppose, for example, it is a 
time when one must meet a difficult problem in 
daily life. Let it be a department of one's nature 
not yet understood. Sit down for an hour's calm, 
systematic thought, and you will find that a 
spirit of repose fell upon you while you were 



ii4 Man and the Divine Order 

thinking. For true thought is the comprehension 
of things in the light of cause and effect, and in 
relation to law, order, reality. If you view your 
troubles from the standpoint of the upheaval 
which produced them, and of that which under- 
lay the upheavals, you gain command over them. 
There is quickening energy in discriminative 
thought which no calculation can measure. (Ig- 
norance is bondage. The truth shall set men 
free. No man faces a danger or a hardship with 
so much composure as he who understands it 
through and through. Intuition may forewarn 
and guidance forearm, but as high as our spiritual 
vision may carry us there is an added power 
when we have not only beheld but actually stood 
on the mountain-top; when we not only feel the 
peace but know the law .J) 

(Some have conceived the divine order as a 
means for the realisation of goodness and have 
become so absorbed in contemplation of the end 
that they have lost sight of the means. ''All is 
good," and this is no doubt a true insight as far as 
it goes. But they then add, ' ' There is no evil, ' ' and 
this amounts to a denial of the conditions whereby 
man gradually evolves from disorder to order. To 
deny the lower order is to misunderstand the 
higher. To classify evil as illusion is to overlook 
the significance of man's moral struggles. The 
larger faith in the divine order acknowledges the 



The Larger Faith 1 1 5 

actuality of evil, that is, the contests of lower and 
higher, but looks beneath and beyond the evil 
that men do to see how the universe turns even 
the evil to account. For the larger faith is in- 
spired by love of facts as well as by devotion to 
goodness.; 

(He who can look at the darkest side of life, 
acknowledge the discord and injustice in the 
world, yet see the unity of life, has penetrated far 
nearer the real heart of things than the mystic 
who denies and ignores.; 

If the mechanical theory were universally true, 
then scientific monism, or the theory which views 
the world as one physical piece, would be a cor- 
rect philosophy. If the mystic's vision were 
wholly true, then it would be right to affirm that 
only God exists. But, unfortunately for the ad- 
vocates of these doctrines, all this is true, and far 
more. The theory of nature must be qualified by 
the vision of the seer, and the seer's vision must be 
tested by scientific reason. 

In certain respects the universe may be com- 
pared to a mechanism. In other respects this fig- 
ure is entirely inadequate, and it would be far more 
correct to compare it to an organism. The or- 
ganic world is composed of living beings, not of 
automata. Automatism be may true of a cer- 
tain plane of life, but above that plane there is 
the world of efficacious consciousness of various 



n6 Man and the Divine Order 

types. It would obviously be irrational to apply 
any general term to the universe which does not 
include the highest type of experience. It is too 
early to say what that type is, except that it is 
akin to the higher consciousness in man, the in- 
tuitions of a superior order of being. The struct- 
ure of the world must be fine and pure enough to 
account for the highest beings in it. The order- 
liness of things includes the highest guidance 
known to the soul. If, therefore, we describe the 
universe as mechanical, in the lowest domain, we 
should not forget to add that it is also spiritual. 
Laws which hold true in the organic world may 
be surpassed by the laws of consciousness. That 
which cannot be accomplished by ordinary con- 
sciousness, may be wrought by consciousness of 
a superior type. 

It is true that, given such a world as the pre- 
sent natural system, it is not only possible to de- 
scribe it in terms of exact law, but even to predict 
its phenomena with mathematical accuracy. But 
that does not show that the same determinations 
extend beyond the domain of nature. Given the 
character of the higher order, we might also be 
able to make predictions which would hold within 
that order. It is rational to think that, the more 
knowledge we possess, the more accurately we 
can describe the system of things. But it is also 
true that the more wisdom we possess the less in- 



The Larger Faith 117 

clined are we to hazard either predictions or gen- 
eralisations about the upper realm of life where 
freedom reigns. In the higher realm there may 
be far more room for choice, variations, novelties, 
and individual creative work than we suspect. 
That which now seems hard and fixed may prove 
yielding and fluid when approached from the 
level of superior powers. What is superstitiously 
called "fate," here below, may appear decidedly 
flexible to those who are outside of its condition- 
ing stream. So-called " chance" events may be 
due to the activity of a superior wisdom. It is 
easy, of course, to indulge in such reflections. 
But what is already known about superior types 
of experience furnishes strong reason for putting 
in these qualifying suggestions. 

It is well occasionally to pass beyond the con- 
ception of the universe as the field of rigidly 
mathematical principles, and regard it from the 
point of view of will, wisdom, higher interests. 
In the higher world, many tendencies may be 
revealed which shall give an unexpected turn to 
events. We are as likely to find new elements 
as the chemist who performs exact experiments 
where he deems the result as certain as "two and 
two are four." : Yet this we may say with con- 
fidence: Whatever the future reveals, we believe 
that these new elements will be of the same hid- 
den substance as the old. The unknown will, we 



n8 Man and the Divine Order 

hope, assume its place beside the familiar. The 
divine order, even spiritually considered, may 
therefore be deemed certain in a sense in which a 
machine is not. 

The possibility that profounder readjustments 
than we can predict may come, gives new signifi- 
cance to the fact that all our experience is relative ; 
it shows that all comparisons are confessions of 
ignorance. Even ultimate ideals and supposed 
" absolute standards" may give way to that which 
is now beyond comprehension. In our higher mo- 
ments we may be unwittingly seeking that which 
lies even beyond the so-called "unattainable." 

To illustrate : Here is a company of people who 
come forward with a new discovery, or a so-called 
" revelation, " heralded as " the greatest the world 
has seen," "final," "complete." But how do we 
know what may be revealed in five years, in fifty, 
or a hundred years? Life on our earth may be 
young as yet. Meanwhile there are other planets, 
some of which may be peopled by beings far in 
advance of ourselves. There may be systems on 
systems of worlds in other universes where our 
knowledge is looked on as child's play. We may 
some time visit these worlds and enjoy experiences 
largely differing from our present existence. Who 
shall now assume to ascribe limits to human ex- 
perience and human knowledge ? 

Look out into the starry heavens on a clear, 



The Larger Faith 119 

brilliant night, and try to picture to yourself the 
immensity of the universe, the possible scope even 
of the physical portion of the divine order. You 
can only stand in adoring wonder, awestruck at 
the mere suggestion. Now turn to the claims of 
men, to the books, systems, and schemes which 
assume to understand all this. How petty and 
absurd seems their extravagant boastfulness ! 

Such thoughts remind us that our acquaintance 
with the divine order rests not alone upon know- 
ledge but upon faith. It is not a science of pre- 
diction but a ground of hope. CWe cannot tell 
precisely what is coming to-morrow. We can only 
say, Come what may, we know that God will 
still be here and His universe will still be orderly. 
We shall not have less but more than we possess 
to-day. Organism is more than mechanism. 
Freedom is more than fate. Possibility is richer 
than certainty J 

Thus, belief in the divine order is, in a sense, 
taking the universe on trust. When we enter the 
calm spot of eternal vision, we believe that, come 
what may, though the physical world be destroyed, 
there is a higher spiritual world where all that is 
truest and dearest shall hold fast. Persecutions 
may come, torture, even death. The cyclone may 
gradually encroach upon the calm spot until only 
a point remains. We may feel ourselves sinking 
beneath the waves, beholding in vision all we are 



120 Man and the Divine Order 

and all that we might have been, yet the space- 
less, timeless spot will still be there, unmoved, un- 
harmed, untouched. -'For even if, in our direst 
straits, we let go our hold and deny the Father, 
He will not abandon us ; and in our very denial we 
may at last truly know Him.) 

Thus we stand at the centre of a circle and look 
out toward the circumference. There is no escape 
in any direction. Wherever we go, wherever we 
look, that new position or that new range of vision 
becomes a new circle whose centre and circum- 
ference are within the divine order, Law is true 
and love is true. Evolution is a fact and per- 
manency is a fact. There is not only eternity, but 
time; not merely end and aim, but method and 
realisation ; not only the peace, but the struggle ; 
not alone the calm spot, but the storm ; the dream 
with its lesson and the interpretation with its 
lesson also ; the feeling and the thought about it ; 
the lower and the higher, and the union of the two ; 
the meaning of evolution as a whole and its mean- 
ing in part, in types, times, and epochs, in worlds 
and systems of worlds. 

Moreover, there is the moral as well as the or- 
ganic order. There is the spiritual which trans- 
figures the moral. There is truth for truth's sake ; 
art, virtue, individuality, society, as ends in them- 
selves ; and so on through countless phases of our 
multiform existence. 



The Larger Faith 121 

Your mystical vision of the unity of life is only 
one point of view. The microscopic analysis of life's 
contrasts, strifes, and warfare is as truly another. 
There is an experience in the storm and another 
in the calm. Who can afford to miss either? 

There is self and there is God, and we must 
have both. The divine order is adequately known 
only through acquaintance with human disorder. 
The divine tide moves onward as resistlessly as the 
sun disappears at the close of day. Possibly God 
could command the sun to stand still, but He could 
not command His own orderly life-flow to cease. If 
there were only this life-flow as God perceives it, 
or as an angel may know it on some far-off planet, 
we might possibly be able to make predictions. 
But always and ever, in all places and at all times, 
there is the human and the divine, the changing 
and the unchanging : and the great joy of life is to 
study their manifold mutual adjustments.J 

Any point of view is likely to lead us to excess if 
we pursue that alone. We might, for example, 
regard the divine order as a perpetual flux, deem- 
ing that order itself progressive. And so it may 
be, relatively speaking. But our thought would 
have to pause somewhere. For there must be a 
calm spot, which/ ' unmoved, ' ' as Aristotle phrased 
it, ' ' moves the world. ' ' There must be an eternal 
centre of poise, balance, harmony, which shall pre- 
vent the flux from becoming either mere return 



122 Man and the Divine Order 

unto itself, as the ancients conceived, mere move- 
ment with no gain, or a gradual regress towards 
chaos. The universe may be as fluid, as full of 
chance and experiment as you like, if only it be 
not wholly so. God maybe as human, as present, 
and personal as you like, provided only that He be 
more than human, more than any revelation of 
Him, and more than a mere personality. 

In other words, the hypothesis of a divine order 
compels us to believe that God is all that science 
and religion, the philanthropist and the prophet 
say He is, and also all that the philosopher finds 
Him to be. That is, God is both immanent and 
transcendent. He is the present life, activity, 
resident movement of the divine order, present in 
the storms and watchful in the conscience of man ; 
and He is wise and poised, self -existent and all- 
containing in that eternal realm where undisturb- 
able harmony reigns. 

The divine order is perfect in detail as well as at 
large. Viewed from the standpoint of vegetal life, 
it is the entire vegetative system which governs 
the plant in its growth from cell to cell. It in- 
cludes the wonderful instincts and tendencies 
which guard animal life in the long evolution from 
simplicity to complexity, which pertain to the ex- 
istence of each individual but also to the welfare of 
the species. Seen in detail, the divine order is 
well illustrated by the ever-faithful tendency to 



The Larger Faith 123 

regain health and harmony that guards every ill 
which besets animal life. There is provision for 
every hurt, every deviation from the ordinary, 
every calamity. As surely as water seeks its 
level, so does every organ in the divine order 
seek to regain its pristine harmony. 

Do you realise what this great fact implies in 
reference to human life ? It means that there is a 
tendency in every error to fulfil itself in the truth, 
that every wrong tends to right itself, every injury 
to heal, whether it be physical, individual, social, 
political, national, or racial. It means that when 
my brother does wrong it is not incumbent upon 
me to correct him, to fight the evil, or condemn it 
in public. If anything is to be learned from his 
action — well and good. But I must first remem- 
ber that there is a tendency in the divine order to 
provide. for that wrong. My brother's conscience 
will sufficiently condemn him. His own moral 
organism will set to work to remedy the ill. Fu- 
ture thought and experience will enable him to 
profit by his error. Memory will constantly re- 
mind him of it, as long as he ought to be reminded. 
It is not for me to be anxious. It is not for me to 
usurp the functions of the moral order. Since the 
universe is moral I have every reason to trust. 
My part is to help, if help be needed, where oppor- 
tunity for moral co-operation offers itself. Any- 
thing more would be officious, j 



124 Man and the Divine Order 

Here is where we see the true relationship be- 
tween the divine and the human. The fact that 
the human is here, an organic part of the divine 
order, proves it to be of worth. But the true 
worth of the human is only found in organic rela- 
tion. The divine order is here; it need not be 
sought or created. All the provisions are made, 
the instincts are at hand, and the ideals are pre- 
sent. God will do His part, and nothing can 
hinder or defeat Him. Our part is to learn the 
nature, tendencies, laws, and instincts of the divine 
organism, that we may move with, not against, 
them. 

In the case of my brother who does wrong, I 
must recognise the soul, the partly fulfilled ideal : 
I must try to see what he really endeavoured to do 
when he thought it would not be so very bad if he 
sinned. I must know him in this deed better than 
he knows himself. I must view his life in the 
light of the broadest perspective, see it as a far- 
sighted adjustment of means to ends. Recognis- 
ing the idealising tendency, I must call it out and 
emphasise it. 

This is far from excusing the wrong or classifying 
it as right. It is rather like the discovery of a per- 
son's error who should say, " Two and one are four, 
or Two and three are four. ' ' These are and always 
will be erroneous statements. But they err by de- 
fect and excess. There is one unit too few in the 



The Larger Faith 125 

first case ; one too many in the second. The person 
was trying to say, " Two and two are four." That 
is the divine order. But the divine order is also 
rich enough to hold all the errors which all men 
may make, and still hold the truth. It is sound 
enough to withstand all the wrongs which all men 
may commit, yet be good; In the same way, any 
soul is pure enough to endure the contaminations 
of the vilest life a man may lead. At the eleventh 
hour, or even later, a reaction will set in which will 
cleanse the ugliest spot. For our extremest ex- 
periences are provided for as surely as our mildest. 
This is why we have such profound faith in God, 
why we do not agree with the anxious missionary 
and the troubled ethical culturist. We believe 
that there is no calamity so great that it can im- 
pede the even flow of the great life-current, no 
crime so terrible that it can mar the beauty of 
the divine order. 

(Action and reaction, supply and demand, negat- 
ive and positive, lower and higher — all these and 
countless other dualities are typical of the adjust- 
ments within the divine order by which every need 
is met. The reaction which rights the wrong is 
as sure a fact in the moral cosmos as the wrong 
which invites it. Emblazon this upon your mem- 
ory; murder will out. Crime actually attracts 
its cosmic punishment, wrong invites right, error 
beckons truth. 



126 Man and the Divine Order 

Do not, then, impede the current. Get your- 
self out of the way. Move with the divine tide. 
Trust in the Father. If the weather be foggy, 
remember the blue sky above. If you are in the 
throes of a hurricane, steer for the calm spot. 
That which is threatening from the superficial 
point of view is promising from the transcendental. 
Remember that this superficial moment, this pre- 
sent cyclone, although a part of reality, is merely 
a fragment of it and is not to be understood out of 
relation. Therefore, cherish your experiences, 
catalogue your moods, collect your apparently 
disjointed data. For they belong to a higher 
unity than any one experience, any one point of 
view or doctrine can reveal. The true unity is 
transcendental, that is, it resides in the eternal 
world. It is like the unity of the soul, too compre- 
hensive for any one moment to seize upon. Yet 
we know that in all deep moments we are united 
with that unity, we are one with that soul, mem- 
bers of one another, fellow-workers with God, 
functions in the divine order. 

To find the divine order is, therefore, to find the 
kingdom of heaven, to which all things shall be 
added. For the divine order is that eternal realm 
encompassing, vivifying, and holding in a system 
all beings, worlds, forces, and evolutions, yet is 
not bound by that which it fills and sustains. In 
the same place and at the same instant both the 



The Larger Faith 127 

calm spot and the storm are present. Every 
storm centre is also a centre of peace for those 
who are acquainted with the divine order. And 
every centre of peace is a way of approach to that 
divine beauty, wisdom, truth to which every soul 
is heir. Recognition of that inheritance is recog- 
nition of the great fact which it has been the ob- 
ject of this chapter to emphasise, namely, that it 
is God who is accomplishing it all, God who guides 
the universe, God who inspires the soul. 



CHAPTER VI 

LINES OF APPROACH 

IT would be difficult for the man of spiritual 
faith to tell when and how he began to believe 
in the spiritual order of things. The only con- 
clusive evidence of a spiritual law is the appeal to 
experience ; and experience is a matter of growth. 
Another dimension is added to life when spiritual 
faith becomes strong. This added world brings 
its own evidence and must be tested by its 
own standards. Hence questions of "how" and 
"when" do not apply, but belong rather to the 
world of space and time. To believe in an eternal 
order as a vitally real part of one's life, as the 
highest domain of the soul, is also to take a differ- 
ent view of the relative importance of this world. 
Just because one believes in a region which is 
made known according to its own laws, arguments 
based on sense-perception are not regarded as 
fundamental. The faith of the one who has had 
evidence of higher things is sure to be scorned by 
one who has had no glimmering of anything be- 
yond what he can physically see and touchf) It is 

128 



Lines of Approach 129 

the peculiar kind of experience, rather than any 
reasonings in its behalf, which is of most conse- 
quence. The one who tries to prove that there is 
a spiritual order to a person who has not this pe- 
culiar evidence to fall back upon, is sure to put 
himself in a ridiculous light. 

Still, there is an evolution of spiritual faith, and 
as the years pass one can look back and discover 
some of the approaches, and these hints may guide 
those who are making the same transition. The 
simple fact is that the soul awoke one day to find 
itself conscious of an additional element in life. 
Then the mind began to see the coherency of 
things where it once saw chaos. Very likely it 
was some process of inductive reasoning which 
prepared the way. For example, the discovery 
of the universality of law may have been the start- 
ing-point. It is a momentous occasion when the 
mind sees the unity of things from the point of 
view of law. Previously one had a sort of vague 
idea that it was possible to sin and not suffer, or 
that, having sinned, one could shift the burden of 
responsibility upon another by accepting a saving 
creed. (To find that every thought and every act 
tends to bring its own reaction by a law as natural 
as that which characterises the fall of an apple is 
to see the whole sphere of human existence in a 
new light.) The unity of law clearly understood, 
it is possible to advance to greater insights. 



130 Man and the Divine Order 

The satisfactory solution of the problem of evil 
is perhaps the next step. For if law reigns every- 
where, if our conduct is conditioned by con- 
sciousness, it is clear that evil is relative to inner 
development ; consequently evil ceases to exist for 
us in so far as we remedy the defects of thought 
and conduct. That is, we learn that the respon- 
sibility rests with man individually, not with the 
universe. The universe gives back action for ac- 
tion. If we misuse our powers we suffer accord- 
ingly. But when we co-operate with the powers 
which make for harmony we turn everything to 
good. We may still have much that is unregen- 
erate in us. We may still wonder how those who 
are immersed in the flesh are to be quickened. 
But, as we now see the law, the way of life is no 
longer mysterious ; we no longer rebel, but begin 
to modify our little world by changing our at- 
titude toward the universe. He who can regard 
the hurricane of passion in his own life and see 
the love of God therein, find the calm spot of 
spiritual faith, has made a long advance toward 
understanding the universe as the domain of the 
Spirit..) 

Again, the approach to the larger faith is some- 
what like this : The mind is haunted by an ideal 
and laments because life cannot at once be shaped 
for its realisation. Creatures of desire, impulsive, 
impatient, we see objects ahead and are eager to 



Lines of Approach 131 

possess them immediately. Accordingly we get 
down in the dust and push, struggle to force things 
into line. We make life miserable not only for 
ourselves, but for all who are connected with our 
impatient ambition. It is true, we succeed in 
raising a dust. But in general the attempt is a 
pitiful failure. Therefore we fall back disheart- 
ened, and long for a universe which offers "ideal" 
conditions. 

Anon, events begin to take shape so that we are 
able to carry out our wish under particularly 
favourable circumstances. We look back and 
note how unfavourable were the circumstances in 
which we tried to force things into line. We see 
that events have worked out better than we could 
have planned. There seems to be a "fitness" in 
things which surpasses our keenest insight. Ac- 
cordingly we. cherish the facts and press on, per- 
haps to make the same mistake and learn the same 
lesson a dozen times, until, at last, we begin to see 
that there is a law revealed in such experiences. 
What we called "luck" seems to be no more the 
work of chance than the awakening of spring after 
the long sleep of winter. Things somehow work 
together. There is a tide in the affairs of men whose 
current we may take when it serves, if we have the 
patience to watch and wait. Apparently our own 
will is little more than a hindrance till the right 
time comes. We are able to make life miserable 



13 2 Man and the Divine Order 

by our impatience, but we cannot change the order 
of life's coming and going.; We are free to let the 
opportunity slip, but other occasions come. The 
wealth of the universe is abundant, but we must 
learn to fall in line with its blessings. How foolish 
our lamentations seem in the face of such bounty ! 
How unwise to try to run the universe when such 
an attempt is like Dame Partington's endeavours 
to sweep back the Atlantic Ocean ! (Emerson says, 
" I am constrained every moment to acknowledge a 
higher origin for events than the will I call mine£T 
The same law of fulfilment of cherished desires 
is exemplified in our relations with our fellows. 
Here is a man, for example, who is out of employ- 
ment but who longs to do a great work. Failure 
seems to be his fate everywhere. Balked in his 
chosen interest, he seeks employment in the con- 
ventional way. He wearily walks the streets in 
his search, presents letters of introduction, exerts 
pressure, and persuades others to use their in- 
fluence. But all in vain. No one seems kind. 
The law of supply and demand has apparently been 
repealed. Every door is closed until, from an un- 
expected source, some one comes who is in need 
of precisely such a worker, and the new occupation 
proves to be the open door to the long-cherished 
work. What waste of energy were the weary 
weeks of searching and straining! The trouble 
was with the seeker, not with the world. In the 



Lines of Approach 133 

economy of the universe there was a need and a 
time. When the right time came, everything 
yielded in a wonderful way. 

The discovery of this higher law is succeeded by 
the conclusion that one may as well depend on the 
course of events and spare one's self the friction 
and worry. For if desire indicates probability of 
fulfilment, why not let our blessings come in their 
own way, why not await favourable occasions? 
As matter of fact, many have found that the more 
they trust to the sources of spiritual supply the 
more everything tends to be provided. The most 
striking fact in the lives of those who live by 
spiritual faith is the concord of events and per- 
sons. Congenial associates are found at times 
when they are most needed. Financial resources 
are provided in the face of prospects which seemed 
utterly unfavourable. Sometimes one's faith is 
tested to the utmost. But the way never fails to 
open, and at a time which later proves to have 
been most favourable for the development of all 
concerned. The way opens for the realisation of 
ideals which seemed "too good to be true." The 
conscious will plays less and less part. One ceases 
to plan, for no plans are needed. One reduces life 
to fidelity to the guidance immediately at hand. 
One asks for help and help comes. 1 One seeks 

1 For the best explanation of prayer, see James, The 
Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 466. 



134 Man and the Divine Order 

light and light is given. More and more one sees 
that there is a deep current in things whereby all 
is carried forward^ If one moves with that cur- 
rent all is provided, one need be concerned with 
nothing else. Sometimes the way is dark, but 
when the sky clears again one sees why it was 
dark, why it was better to work out a certain 
problem by one's self than have it solved for one. 

(Thus the soul gradually grows in faith as the 
lessons of experience are learned.) The great fact 
is that the supreme evidence is empirical. It is a 
question of understanding just such lives as yours 
and mine. When we see the law of our life we 
can begin to adapt our conduct to it. To begin to 
live faithfully is to add to our faith. 

At this point the critic is ready to break in with 
the remark that these are trivial experiences which 
the mind interprets as it pleases. They are ex- 
plicable in purely naturalistic terms, and it is folly 
to regard the alleged "working of all things to- 
gether" as aught more than a series of coinci- 
dences. 

To this I reply that evidences of "guidance" 
may indeed seem trivial to one who has not en- 
joyed such an experience. All through the ages 
those who have claimed to be " led," to behold an 
inner light, have been adversely criticised by the 
unillumined. (But trivial or not, and however 
these intuitions may be interpreted, they are still 



Lines of Approach 135 

matters of fact in the inner life, they have led to 
great and noble results, and they are approaches 
to an experience which is far more consequential.} 
The wise man is at least willing to hear the reports 
of such guidances with sympathetic ears. If he 
cannot propose a better explanation than that of- 
fered by popular religious believers, he at any rate 
refrains from denying the facts. To insist that 
there are no such facts, but simply certain "val- 
ues," is tacitly to confess that one has not yet 
been quickened. 

Doubtless one should hesitate to settle upon 
any one theory of spiritual guidance.) To declare 
that God had a specific "plan" covering all the 
details of an experience which you have just 
passed through is to assume too much. At any 
rate, it is jumping forward to the finality of things 
before the intermediate stages are understood, and 
it is precisely these stages which we wish to under- 
stand. But uncertainty in regard to the specific 
form in which the guidance comes should not deter 
one from faith in its coming. Whatever the 
sceptic says, you know that whereas your life once 
seemed fragmentary you now behold law, order; 
you have a principle by which to explain exper- 
ience. That there is deep truth in this conviction 
you are assured when you compare notes with 
people of whatever belief or clime who have had 
similar experiences.} 



136 Man and the Divine Order 

Even the sceptic will admit that he has had a 
somewhat analogous experience. Possibly your 
spiritual vision is unreal to him only because he 
refuses to examine the evidence. At any rate, 
you do not doubt the vision because you cannot 
set forth its beauty in dull prose. If life be both 
poetry and prose, you see no reason why you 
should capitulate to the man of prosaic natural- 
ism. If there really is a Spirit which "bloweth 
where it listeth," one would only expect a response 
from those whom the Spirit has touched in pass- 
ing. There are things which we cannot do unless 
power be given us. / There are moments when we 
are constrained to say: " Give me no credit, what 
I wrought and what I said came forth from me 
because I was 'moved.' I tried to repeat the 
performance, but failed. I tried to tell another 
how to do it, but could not. All I can say is that 
I was more than my ordinary self. Doubt as you 
will, I know that I deeply lived in those great 
moments, and I must give them place in my 
philosophy. '■? 

The facts and values of what is called " spiritual 
guidance" are of course susceptible of a variety 
of interpretations. It is undoubtedly true that 
they tend to increase in number and efficiency for 
those who believe in them; whereas scepticism 
closes the door. Generally speaking, they ac- 
company the more childlike life, the life of sweet 



Lines of Approach 137 

trust and genuine receptivity. CThey come, too, 
for those who enjoy a certain amount of solitude 
and freedom from the tumult of the world.; When 
we are constantly with our fellow-men we depend 
on their opinions and advice. While we are en- 
gaged in absorbing scientific pursuits we have no 
ear for spiritual whisperings. It is a profoundly 
suggestive fact that some who have enjoyed a 
singularly beautiful religious experience during a 
number of years find themselves cut off from the 
world of inner guidances when they become de- 
votees of a coldly analytical doctrine which insists 
on strictly logical proof. 

What is the resource when doubt comes ? One 
method is to return to nature in the fullest sense 
of the word, yield one's self once more to the life 
of spontaneity. Another is to pursue one's doubts 
to the end. This is one of the surest approaches 
to a larger faith. No philosophical exercise is 
more profitable than the endeavour to trace out 
the consequences of religious faith. It is the fail- 
ure to do this which is in large part responsible 
for the undesirable mysticism and the fanaticism 
which have sometimes marred spiritual doctrines. 
It is. easy to leap forward to mystical conclusions, 
and it requires great patience to eliminate false 
conclusions when the mind is once started on the 
pantheistic road. To go back and retrace one's 
steps is to find one's self on a different pathway. 



i3 8 Man and the Divine Order 

Yet surprisingly profitable discoveries await all 
who are willing to make the venture. 

When religious faith begins to wane it seldom 
occurs to people that the remedy is not to go in 
search of another creed, but to scrutinise their old 
beliefs more closely in order to discover where the 
structure was weak. The decline in faith was 
probably not due to a less firm hold upon the facts 
but to intellectual questionings. Since the trouble 
was intellectual the resource must be intellectual. 
While we move swimmingly along it never occurs 
to us to inquire into the foundations of our faith, 
to ask ourselves in all seriousness, What are 
the conditions of religious faith, what are its pre- 
suppositions, what is the ideal attitude, and what 
obstacles beset the pathway of the believer? 
Never having asked ourselves why we believe in 
the divine order we are unable to defend our faith 
when doubts arise. Therefore we ignominiously 
surrender when we really have the power within 
us to make good the deficiency. 

The present inquiry proceeds on the assumption 
that the only remedy for poor philosophy is good 
philosophy. If your general faith collapses you 
must begin to consider, in detail, what it means 
to possess sound faith. Take, for instance, some 
tenet of your childhood's faith and ask in the 
first place if you really believe it, and if so what 
it means consistently to live by it in all situations. 



Lines of Approach 139 

Then consider the relation of this precept to other 
doctrines, consider the facts, the real experiences 
out of which these precepts grew, and endeavour to 
ascertain the central principle by which you have 
lived, by which you are eager to live, at your best 
moments. It is commonly supposed that such 
an inquiry weakens faith. On the contrary, it 
cannot fail to strengthen your convictions pro- 
vided you are true both to the facts and the doc- 
trines, if you are willing to enlarge your faith by 
putting it through the tests of thought. 

As an exercise in this kind of philosophising, 
let us ask, What are the great tenets of spiritual 
faith? As this question would be variously an- 
swered by different individuals in different ages, 
let us offer a series of answers which would be 
given by an average religious devotee at the 
present time. 

1. First stands the belief in God as unfailing 
love, eternal, all-wise, beneficent, immanent yet 
transcendent. God for the world of modern faith 
is "in His world" in a more intimate sense than 
was possible until the rise of the philosophy of 
evolution. 

2 . - The existence of human souls as sons of God, 
immortal spirits . Some would dispute this propos- 
ition, as immortality is supposed to be conferred 
when the soul has in truth become a son of God 
through conversion, or by the divine grace. But 



i4° Man and the Divine Order 

let us assume universal sonship as most likely to 
prove consistent with the divine love.; 

3. The existence of a superior realm, a spiritual 
world, which environs the present existence. For 
the modern world there is no space between the 
kingdom of heaven on earth, and the kingdom 
of the spirit wherein the Father is more fully 
manifested.. 

4. The existence of a moral law, a tendency to- 
ward the right such that, in the end, justice shall 
be done, all men shall be free.) 

5. The presence within man of a witness, a 
monitor, a guidance which indicates the pathway 
of the right. Some would describe this as con- 
science, others would more broadly characterise it 
as the ''inner light." 

6. The belief that there is power, wisdom to 
meet any possible situation ; that the divine love 
never fails. "As thy day, so shall thy strength 
be." " Though he slay me yet will I trust him.)' 

Put in other terms, the general presupposition of 
spiritual faith is that there is a divine order, a 
universal system which exemplifies law yet is in- 
spired by love; which springs from infinite wis- 
dom, and is unchangeable, therefore eternal. 
Another presupposition is that error, struggle, and 
suffering are relatively superficial, ephemeral. 
That is, evil is a temporary actuality, not an 
eternal reality. However great the wrong, how- 



Lines of Approach 14 1 

ever far reaching the conflict, evil does not disturb 
the ultimate order of things, nor their laws: the 
universe at heart is unhurt, "the infinite lies wrapt 
in smiling repose." Many would of course doubt 
this proposition, but it serves to typify a certain 
faith, and that is all that is required in order to 
afford a test for the faith of the critic. Many 
would go much farther and declare that the fact 
that the universe is a divine order shows that the 
whole course of life is purposive. Thus they 
would account for spiritual guidances. It would 
be but one step more to assert that all experience 
is for the development of the soul, hence all life 
is in reality a spiritual unity, the unity of your 
experience and the unity of mine are harmonious 
with the divine ideal. 

If the truth-seeker be unable to accept such a 
broad faith, let him try to think out to its logical 
terminus the theory of the divine grace as choosing 
whom it will and relegating all other souls to 
endless torment. Such a theological excursion is 
almost impossible nowadays. For we are really 
beginning to believe that God is just, that He is 
truly the Father of love.. Salvation is not limited 
by time, or to this world — so many now main- 
tain. There are "no lost souls" in the ultimate 
sense of the word. The divine grace is the omni- 
present Spirit, ever ready to quicken all who 
aspire, who hunger and thirst after righteousness? 



i4 2 Man and the Divine Order 

Consequently, true religious zeal ought to concern 
itself with the conditions whereby the immediate 
presence is made known. There is no longer any 
reason for painting the blackness of sin. 

Sharply contrasted with belief in the partiality 
and miraculous character of the divine grace is the 
theory in which emphasis is placed solely upon 
human action and reaction. We are precisely 
what the past has made us. We are the victims of 
our own folly, our ''Karma." Through all the 
universe rigid law reigns. There is no escape 
except by returning the exact mathematical 
equivalent of every misdeed. We attract what 
we are like, what we believe in. According to our 
state of development everything is rendered unto 
us. That which is for us gravitates to us. We 
have what we "need" for our development. 
Everything depends on ourselves, on the way we 
take life. If we do not take advantage of our 
opportunities now, they will recur in more severe 
form. Thus, ever on and on, till we are com- 
pelled to choose the pathway of the higher life. 

To pursue such a creed to the end is to discover 
that it leaves God out of account and is a purely 
personal method of salvation. This creed really 
amounts to fatalism. What we are said to ' ' need ' ' 
and must suffer turns out to be the result of our 
own misconduct which we superstitiously rever- 
ence instead of overcoming. If we "need" it at 



Lines of Approach 143 

all it must be to show us that we are the victims 
of our own folly when we hold such a faith. For 
this conception of life attains unity at the expense 
of the freer activities of the spirit. It emphasises 
the fate-driven circumstance rather than the 
higher possibility. Carried to its logical end, it 
is a purely mechanical conception in which the 
soul amounts to little more than a magnet, round 
which thoughts and deeds collect as tacks are 
drawn by a magnetic current. All that the doc- 
trine emphasises is doubtless true — in its own 
sphere. But universally applied it is far from 
adequate. We are indeed bound by hereditary 
ties, by action and reaction. We reap what we 
sow, and there is fitness between supply and de- 
mand. But unless we are morally free, how could 
we accept the "opportunities" that are "attract- 
ed" to us? > 

There is a more pleasing kind of religious faith 
which declares that each of us is in the best possi- 
ble situation. The objection to this doctrine is 
that it assumes too much, it forgets the condi- 
tions of human life. It may well be that there 
is guidance for each of us. If we always took the 
divine advice, if we had always taken it — without 
a single exception — we could then perhaps de- 
clare that our present life is the best fruition of 
the best possible past. But who can make such 
an enormous claim ? The utmost that we can say 



144 Man and the Divine Order 

of our fellows is that most of them do about as well 
as they know, about as well as we could do under 
the same circumstances. Unless we are to deny 
the very law of our being, we must acknowledge 
that we are constantly in the presence of a lower 
and a higher. The whole significance of the divine 
guidance lies in the fact that we can accept or re- 
ject it. My present opportunity is not "best" 
unless I make it so by triumphing over a worst. 
Only in case God acted through me so that no act 
ever sprang from myself could it strictly be said 
that my life could not have been better than it is. 

Having, then, tested the presuppositions of 
one's faith by comparison with conflicting doc- 
trines, the next step is to consider the ideal atti- 
tude. Here, again, a different answer would be 
given by each believer. But let us say that in 
general the ideal of spiritual faith is to live a poised, 
moderate life, so characterised by inner calmness, 
self-possession, wisdom, love, that one will be 
ready to meet any circumstance with composure, 
be it an accident, sorrow, great suffering, or an 
occasion for self-denying service. The first es- 
sential is inner calmness, peace, alertness to see 
what to do, insight. The second is readiness to 
act, practicality. The third is readiness to serve. 

Spiritual faith, therefore, begins at home. Ap- 
plied, it is adaptability to any occasion, however 
trying, such that it shall prove to be a spiritual 



Lines of Approach 145 

opportunity. The essential is to believe though 
all seems dark, even where everything points to 
failure. When in doubt, one should be true to 
the best one knows. When one does not know 
what to do to-morrow, or next year, one should 
do that which is nearest as well as it can be done. 
Fidelity to the present duty, even if it fail to 
satisfy, is the open door to the freer life. 

But spiritual faith is also social, and can only 
be complete in so far as it shares the blessings of 
the inner life. The first obstacle that is met when 
one tries to be true to one's faith is duality, the 
conflict of self, struggle with doubt and selfishness. 
But the real problem is social injustice, oppression, 
and the rest ; the question, namely, How shall one 
deal with the dogmatism, ignorance, materialism, 
and selfishness of the world ? It is easy to be self- 
possessed and trustful in an environment which 
does not cause the brow to ruffle. That which 
sometimes passes as faith is indolence or selfish- 
ness at heart, the love of luxurious ease. Faith 
is faith when it does something. Without works 
it is indeed dead. Our age more and more insists 
on the social test. 

Yet even as personally considered, faith is not 
certain till it has been severely tested. W r ith the 
majority it is merely intellectual until it has come 
face to face with sorrow, suffering, and the separa- 
tion from loved ones. To have faith till one finds 



146 Man and the Divine Order 

one's place in life is a severe ordeal, to await the 
coming of truth when one hungers and thirsts for 
knowledge ; and above all to meet the tests which 
the lack of money brings. Fortunate is he who 
knows what poverty is. 

Then there is the temporal factor. The eye of 
faith sees quickly and far, but the flesh is unyield- 
ing, and regeneration is slow. Outer circumstance 
is in perpetual conflict with spiritual faith. The 
wisest prophet is doomed to disappointment. It 
is well for us if we at least know the law of re- 
generation, namely, from within outward; first 
the ideal, then the intellectual understanding of it, 
and finally the readjustment of external circum- 
stance. It is long to wait until the other things 
are added — when we have found the inner king- 
dom of peace and begun to seek the righteousness 
of God. 

The particular subjective factor of spiritual faith 
is admonition, illumination, "guidance." Noth- 
ing is more sure than the true guidance, yet ex- 
perience is the only criterion which reveals the 
deceits of that subtle personal sentiment which 
masquerades as divine intuition. There are mani- 
fold illusions due to personal preference, morbid 
psychological conditions, pathological and other 
deflecting physical influences. The residuum is 
worth working for. But that there is no infallible 
guidance, no intuition which makes itself known 



Lines of Approach 147 

once for all, without the contrasts of conflicting 
experiences, is one of the profoundest truths of the 
inner life. It is only by philosophical interpreta- 
tion that one at last knows what intuition is, what 
it implies as a guide to spiritual faith. 

Faith passes through many stages from child- 
hood to maturity. Those who are passing to 
manhood's faith are apt to look with regret upon 
people who can still believe without a doubt. But 
is it really true that when "ignorance is bliss 't is 
folly to be wise"? Is faith really itself when it 
is naive, uncritical, non -rational? How can we 
expect it to be universal until we have fully taken 
it up into the understanding, found ourselves still 
in possession of it after we have considered the 
great questions of critical thought? Moreover, 
there are conflicting faiths and interpretations of 
faiths. . One must either have a criterion by which 
to judge these, or fall back into that rigid dog- 
matism which so often characterises the religious 
believer. 

Another important consideration in the study of 
spiritual experience is the fact that such experience 
occurs under certain conditions. There are two 
points of view from which such conditions may be 
regarded. They may seem to be mere limitations 
and to exclude the soul from knowledge of reality 
or, understood, they may prove to be the most 
direct channels of communion with the higher 



148 Man and the Divine Order 

order. It may be that some conditions so far affect 
our consciousness that we can see nothing as it 
really is — from that point of view. But that does 
not prove that from all points of view reality is 
obscure. A wall which shuts out light may yet 
admit the passage of intelligible sound vibrations. 
The X-ray penetrates where all is otherwise dark 
to us. Any limitation may, for all we know, be a 
limitation only until a greater power is discovered 
which can overcome it. That which seems im- 
possible on a lower plane may seem like a mere 
commonplace on a higher. 

To insist that all limitations are absolute would 
be theoretically to shut God out of communion 
with His world. If there be any walls through 
which God cannot pass, He is weak and finite in the 
extreme. The spiritual seer starts from the oppo- 
site point of view, and tells us that the Spirit 
" bloweth where it listeth," it has a law of its own. 
At first sight this seems like lawnessness, but it is 
simply a higher law. In one condition it is true 
that what I see and feel is limited by my state 
of body and mind. In another condition these 
media have nothing to do with it. Gravity is an 
unchangeable law in its own field. But gravity 
can be overcome. On a cloudy day the world 
looks dark. But there are mountain tops far 
above the clouds, whence one may look into the 
boundless blue empyrean. 



Lines of Approach 149 

To one who understands their deflecting power, 
even pathological conditions may be no obstacle ; 
for the mind is able consciously to transcend them, 
since there are two levels of consciousness as 
sharply contrasted as the calm spot and the hurri- 
cane which rages around it. One might almost 
say that the discovery of the two planes of con- 
sciousness is the foundation of knowledge of the 
spiritual life, On one plane the mind is more or 
less painfully aware of imprisoning feelings and 
other limitations. The soul is under the law, and 
is extremely conscious of it. On the higher plane 
the soul lives in the joy of the outcome, is not so 
much concerned with the process of evolution as 
with that which evolution is to bring forth. The 
painful feelings are still there, but they do not 
imprison. The limitations are still seen, yet from 
the upper side. The law is as stern as ever, but 
the soul lives in consciousness of the love which is 
its fulfilment. On the lower plane one is simply 
one's self. On the higher the soul is attached 
to the source of spiritual supply. The majority 
dwell on the lower plane a large part of the time. 
Hence their philosophy partakes of its limitations. 
Even those who have in some measure learned to 
distinguish between the two types of consciousness 
are seldom able to attain the higher vision or to 
hold it for any length of time. 

Consciousness of limitations is enough to stagger 



150 Man and the Divine Order 

any man, if he thinks simply of those.; The only 
way to succeed is to press bravely forward, ride 
over the environing conditions, and achieve the 
impossible. One should neither ignore the con- 
ditions, nor declare with certain contemporary 
theorists that "there are no limitations." But 
philosophically and practically one must remem- 
ber and take account of the two levels or types of 
consciousness. For both are real. Both are rela- 
tive. The truth about life is a synthesis of the 
total knowledge gained through both. 

Aside from its experiential value, the experi- 
ence has a logical basis. That is to say, it is an 
entirely defensible hypothesis that there is a mode 
of intuition which transcends sense perception. 
Side by side with brain states which condition the 
mind, there may be spiritual states which are no 
more hindered by them than the X-ray is impeded 
by conditions which other rays cannot penetrate^ 
Indeed, it may be questioned if the evidences on 
which science bases many of its conclusions in 
regard to the physical world are any more sound 
than the data of intuition. Our physical senses 
mislead us till we learn to eliminate subjective 
factors. In the end, most of us believe that our 
senses tell us truly. There may be subtle inter- 
ferences with the spiritual sense, but that is no 
argument against the final validity of the informa- 
tion it gives. The universal testimony of those 



Lines of Approach 1 5 l 

who are spiritually gifted is that a veil is drawn 
when the inner illumination occurs. Then they 
realise how greatly we are hampered by the flesh. 
Having now briefly considered some of the ideals 
and conditions of spiritual faith, let us carry our 
inquiry a stage farther by more explicitly defining 
the type of faith in the divine order which has here 
guided us. The definition need only be tentative, 
but it will serve to bring our inquiry to an issue. 
Generally speaking, we may say that the divine 
order is the system which embraces everything, all 
worlds, every soul, in so far as that which exists 
bears direct relation to God. The ultimate source 
or reason for being of the divine order is the 
character, the constitution of God. The total 
universe is a system because God is orderly. It is 
exemplified by law because the power and wisdom 
which it reveals is systematic, purposive. It has 
unity because there is no other God, nothing unin- 
cluded, because it is the expression of one divine 
ideal. It is manifold, rich, because it expresses a 
richly varied life, and the central divine ideal 
involves many secondary purposes. These pur- 
poses include the ideals of all individual souls, and 
the most minute as well as the most stupendous 
activities of nature. It is a spiritual order be- 
cause God is Spirit, invisible, eternal; whereas 
visible things come and go. It is ethical because 
God is just, righteous, and wills the best for all 



152 Man and the Divine Order 

His creatures. The central purpose is the mani- 
festation or full realisation of the divine nature, 
the perfection of all forms and modes of infinitely 
varied life, and the perfection of all human beings 
as sons of God. Yet the divine order is such as to 
leave scope for the individual experience of an in- 
finite diversity of finite souls. The divine order is 
eternal in the heavens, but its guiding powers are 
not far from even the most wayward consciousness 
of mam) 

The divine order is the divine reason, as well as 
the divine love ; and one must give each aspect its 
due. The prime characteristic of Spirit in mani- 
festation is that it assumes a two-fold form. If 
we bear this in mind and trace out its relation- 
ships we shall be able to steer clear of the shoals 
where many become stranded. God is unity in 
variety. The universe, partaking of his nature, is 
also unity in variety. Spiritual vision is essentially 
insight into the divine unity, the eternal aspect 
with the temporal left out. The eternal may be 
known as in a flash, the temporal, by its very 
nature, can only be known through time. Hence, 
there must be a gradual working out, or rationali- 
sation of that which, seen under the aspect of 
eternity, appears as one. 

We thus discover the real problem which con- 
fronts all who would work out this faith in the 
divine order in its fulness. What is the relation- 



Lines of Approach 153 

ship of the temporal and the eternal, the rational 
and the spiritual, the divine and the human? If 
there be truth, value in both, what shall be the 
criterion of their unity? Must we await the fur- 
ther vision, till all shall be revealed, or is it possible 
to develop a philosophy of the divine order in rela- 
tion to the living present? 

By implication, we have already dismissed the 
alleged solution which sweeps the whole problem 
aside by declaring that the divine order is abso- 
lutely perfect, that man is perfect now. For we 
are unwilling to relegate to that convenient limbo 
called "illusion" the very difficulty which we seek 
to explain, namely, the existence of imperfection in 
the world. We have also dismissed the popular 
optimism which asserts that we are even now in 
the best possible situation, that we could not have 
acted otherwise. For this robs human life of its 
real meaning as found through freedom, choice, 
experiment, mistake, enlightenment, regeneration, 
and adjustment; it overlooks the fact that the 
perfect guidance may be ever present without 
being followed, that we are not fated to obey it. 
These assertive optimists show by their conduct 
that they do not believe this absolutism. They 
constantly speak of the "mistakes" they have 
made, and they find themselves face to face with 
practical problems which they must solve. Here 
is the real test. 



154 Man and the Divine Order 

The glory of the divine life is that it does not 
keep its perfection to itself ; it shares its love and 
wisdom with all. Its beauty, its love is found in 
action, evolution. The divine order is not dead: 
it is doing something, ever advancing to a new 
moment of self-expression. This new moment is 
the great fact. It is far greater for us now than 
what has been done, or what may be done.;. There 
is no stationary perfect, no absolute attainment. 
If the divine order were absolute it would already 
be crystallised. The joy of the whole vast organ- 
ism is that there is something to attain, something 
yet indetermined. The basis of our faith is not 
that there is harmony everywhere, but that, 
though there are storms, there is peace at the 
centre. The joy of finite life at any moment is 
that, despite the discord, despite the disloyalty to 
the divine guidance, the guidance is still with us, 
however great our sin. Only Jesus can say: "I 
always do what is well-pleasing in thy sight." 

We must clearly understand, then, that the 
spiritual order as here described is not deemed 
absolute or stationary. If the world which the 
seer discovers were literally a perfect whole, where 
all things were known and all perfection attained, 
there would surely be no reason why this temporal 
world should exist. The truth is, so we here 
maintain, that the divine order includes both the 
spiritual realm in the eternal sense and the 



Lines of Approach 155 

natural world of every-day life. The natural 
world is grounded in the divine order, else it could 
not be. To contemplate is not enough. We must 
act. The whole group of things and beings within 
the divine order is moving forward. Something is 
doing, both in heaven and on earth. Perfection is 
not yet, no, not anywhere. God himself would 
be incomplete without this time-world; there is 
actual novelty in His life. The divine order is a 
society, not a block. God works and we work, 
and we do not constitute one monotonous whole.) 



CHAPTER VII 

THE SPIRITUAL VISION 

THERE are moments in life when we stand in 
the presence of the divine beauty. That 
which is sordid and ugly is for the time lost to 
view. We pass beyond doubt and fear, beyond 
the prose to the poetry of life, where the exacti- 
tudes and the sharp lines of our ordinary occupa- 
tion are softened, and a gentle radiance falls on 
all the scene. The details of life's toilsome days 
are still there, and we stand no less firmly on the 
substantial earth. Yet there is a unity in our 
experience which we did not see before, a har- 
mony where we once heard discord, a beneficence 
where we once felt pain. For the moment there 
seems to be no mystery ; all truth is present, all 
power is apparently active there. The moment 
flits, but the memory abides, to remind us that at 
other times we only partly live. Hence there 
arises a deep longing to describe by some higher 
art than poetry or science, painting or music, the 
beauty, the truth, and joy of that wondrous scene. 
The attempt to translate the insight into exact 

156 



The Spiritual Vision 157 

terms clearly convinces the mind that one in truth 
had a vision of the great beyond, the environing 
whole, in which ordinary life is but a fragment. 
One shrinks from making a poetic account of the 
vision lest the crowd misunderstand and the 
critics laughingly cry, ' ' Weak sentiment ! ' ' Yet it 
must be that even those who pass scoffingly by 
feel instantly rebuked for their irreverence. For 
in one way or another we all confess that life is 
more than money-making, eating, and sleeping. 
All our religious institutions are evidences of be- 
lief in a higher order of things, and while we scoff 
with the lips we feel shame in our hearts. The 
poets and prophets, the great artists and musi- 
cians are those who had the courage to speak for 
the highest, while other men turned weakly aside. 
It seems probable that this poetic insight is 
akin to the experience which has given rise to 
mysticism in all ages. The language of mysti- 
cism has often been far from acceptable. But 
there is no reason to doubt the reality of the ex- 
perience which inspires mysticism. To under- 
stand the type is to realise how difficult it is to do 
justice to the great vision.; It would be entirely 
unfair to judge by the letter. The real question 
is, How happens it that one experience so pro- 
foundly impresses the soul? Why does a single 
insight outweigh the authority of all arguments 
which apparently make against it? 



158 Man and the Divine Order 

It is one of the most impressive facts in human 
life that all through the ages, from the days of 
ancient India's great seers to the present time, 
prophets and poets have declared that God was 
present to their souls in unhampered communion. 
The vision has been variously described in differ- 
ent ages, and the most conflicting conclusions have 
been drawn from it. Yet the varied terminology 
is rather evidence of the universality of the vision 
than an argument against its reality. There is no 
good reason to doubt that some presence has made 
itself known. Whether a personal God was sup- 
posed to speak, or an exalted spirit; whether a 
veil was lifted so that the soul could behold the 
realities of things with unclouded vision, or the 
subliminal self delivered its messages without re- 
vealing their source — at any rate the seer has been 
in more or less intimate relation with a superior 
order of being. Hence the language employed, 
and hence the enthusiasm which must ever seem 
vain and extravagant to one who has not enjoyed 
the experience. 

'The most marked characteristic of the ex- 
perience in its more conscious form is the tem- 
porary lifting of the soul into a purer atmosphere, 
above the limitations of mundane consciousness. 
One stands as it were on a mountain summit where 
neither space nor time impedes the vision. Ages 
roll before the mind as if they were one, and beheld 



The Spiritual Vision 159 

in one moment. The world is spread out as if it 
were all present on a plane surface. What cannot 
be made known directly is revealed symbolically 
through pictures, forms, and signs which indicate 
the trend and meaning of things past and present. 
Sometimes the vision unfolds spontaneously. 
Again, one is able to turn at will in various direc- 
tions to see how things are, or to ask questions and 
feel the answer rather than hear it; touch the 
thing itself, not simply behold it afar. The essen- 
tial truth is describable in symbolical language. 
But the reality that is seen and felt is the great 
fact. Hence the mystic confesses his inability to 
say what he would. This is the tantalising fea- 
ture of mysticism, and it is sometimes taken as 
proof that the spiritual vision is a mere blank. 
One might as well say that there is naught else in 
the enjoyment of a Beethoven symphony than 
might be appreciated by reading the scored 

To insist that what one can describe is all there 
was in the vision is to profane it. Common sense 
should tell any one that a vision which makes a 
lifetime impression must have been very rich and 
noble. There is reason to believe that some of the 
philosophers who devoted the whole of a long life 
to the development of a system based their entire 
work on one or two visions of this sort. They saw 
enough in a few moments to give them occupation 
for a generation. They said very little about the 



160 Man and the Divine Order 

vision, as such. They wrote about that which the 
vision implied. But there are signs in their works 
that they actually beheld the great glory, — signs 
which all who have beheld at once understand. 
They would have given forth the vision, too, had it 
been possible ; they would have propounded an art 
of seership. 

In all attempts to understand seership it is 
necessary to remember that there is this unword- 
able residuum which is worth all the rest. The 
exposition of this faith is imperfect and probably 
always will be imperfect. Only by constructively 
supplying what the seer omits can we expect to do 
justice to his statement. It is possible, however, 
that headway will be made in this reconstruction, 
so that the implications of the great insight will be 
more and more fully worked out. 

Again, the vision comes in the form of glimpses 
of a higher mode of life, so far above this temporal 
existence that in comparison this is but the val- 
ley enclosed by the transcendental heights. On 
those heights life is said to be so glorious that all 
the marvellous pictures of heaven and of social 
Utopias are but dimly suggestive in comparison. 
There is music far more melodious than the mu- 
sic of earth, caught in part f x>m transcendental 
melodies. Souls know souls and love souls. The 
things of our earth are laid bare. The thoughts 
of the ordinary mind are as plainly understood as 



The Spiritual Vision 161 

we now comprehend the limitations of childhood. 
Each man is known for what he is worth. There is 
no hiding behind prejudice, pride, self-conceit, and 
ignorance. There is justice, equality, freedom. 
Each man counts as one soul in proportion to the 
beauty, truth, and love he reveals. Souls are 
known by their "light," their radiance. The uni- 
verse is beheld as one great kingdom of wisdom, 
beauty, light, brotherhood, love, sonship, and 
Fatherhood. It is reckoned by souls and the 
lives of souls, not by things and conditions. It is 
known as attainments, relations, joys, and beau- 
ties in eternity, not by moments or ages. Mo- 
ments are there, conditions, and all else. But 
these are too trivial for special notice, and are 
not the decisive factors. The essential is being. 
Souls are. They are content to be, and to let 
other souls be. What life brings is their concern, 
not what they can make or unmake. They do 
what is given them to do, and therein find their 
joy. The glory of the whole, what is best, what is 
beautiful for the whole, is their ideal. 

The chief value of the spiritual vision for our 
present purposes is to make record of it as one of 
the empirical approaches to faith in the divine 
order. It is an intuition, a point of view. For 
many it is doubtless the supreme evidence that 
there is a divine order. Yet the fact that it is thus 
important need not imply that the pantheistic 



1 62 Man and the Divine Order 

account of it which is sometimes given is true. 
It may seem to the percipient that he is, in very- 
truth, the living God ; while the world may for the 
moment appear to be a mere dream. Hence it is 
easy to understand how pantheism arose. More- 
over, there are certain conclusions in regard to the 
intellect, the nature of matter, and the phenome- 
nal world which seem to confirm the pantheistic 
notion. These conclusions we shall examine in 
other chapters. Suffice it at present that we not 
only reject all mysterious claims, but insist that 
the spiritual vision need not even be an accidental 
affair. Like all other experiences, the great in- 
sight is made known under certain conditions. 
To understand the conditions is to be able to cult- 
ivate them, and hence to acquire a type of self- 
consciousness which guards against the illusions 
of mysticism. 

From any point of view it is necessary to under- 
stand the conditions of spiritual insight. There 
is no likelihood that close analysis will lead to 
scepticism. The experience is too real for that. 
The soul is actually, immediately in relation with 
a superior order of being. The reality of the 
vision in some profound sense is the prime fact. 
But the limitations of finite consciousness are also 
facts. These limitations do not necessarily ex- 
clude the higher consciousness. Yet they must 
always qualify any experience of which they are 



The Spiritual Vision 163 

the condition. In the first stages of mysticism the 
religious devotee is wholly ignorant of the con- 
ditions, hence the experience seems beyond all 
control. But in due course the act of turning to 
the higher region becomes a distinctly marked ex- 
perience, largely subject to the will; Ordinarily, 
no doubt, the sublimest visions of the divine 
order, such as those which have been the basis of 
a philosophical lifetime, have come unexpectedly 
and unsought. Undoubtedly one should give 
these spontaneous experiences first rank through- 
out life. But as a lower type of consciousness in- 
variably succeeds the vision, the question is, How 
shall one live on the lower plane? Is there any 
reason why one should not observe and practise 
the conditions of approach of the spiritual vision ? 
It is surely possible to enter into the fulness of 
the religious life and give an appreciative place to 
the profoundest facts of mysticism yet avoid the 
pitfalls, snares, and negations which usually mar 
spiritual philosophy. The test comes when the 
seer turns from the contemplative to the practical 
life, when he undertakes to describe his vision so 
that others may benefit by it. There are many 
problems to be considered before the adjustment 
is complete. But one need not look farther than 
the great works of a few seers of high rank to find 
a complete solution. The fact that there are prob- 
lems is largely due to the speculative separation 



1 64 Man and the Divine Order 

between the divine order and the practical order. 
(The divine is the practical order. God is here. 
The reality within and behind the seer's vision 
is the eternal ordery 

Since the divine order is the basis of all ex- 
perience, as its tendencies include every moment 
of our life, we are only true to it when we take it 
fully into account, both in conduct and in thought. 
When we are at strife, in mental distress, we must 
find the calm spot amidst the storm, find the 
order within and behind the chaos. We should 
remember that there is no separation between the 
two. We may then assimilate the practical re- 
sults in philosophical terms, and eliminate the 
vague mysticisms and irrational conclusions of 
spiritual thought. For no man was ever a pan- 
theist in practical life. Practical life immediately 
gives the lie to a vast collection of airy idealisms. 
In the world of to-day we must meet the problems 
of to-day. Your life must show what you believe. 
If, therefore, you believe in the divine order, apply 
this belief in its fulness in such wise that not one 
thing in God's fair world shall be neglected^ 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE PRACTICAL IDEALISM OF PLATO 

THERE are two leading points of view from 
which the great philosophers of the past 
may be regarded. We may consider their sys- 
tems as pieces of exact reasoning, and, as such, 
more or less open to theoretical objections ; or we 
may regard them in the light of their practical 
value, and their relation to the personal history of 
the men of genius who produced them. It is the 
latter point of view which is most apt to be over- 
looked. We forget that the great metaphysical 
systems grew out of concrete human experience. 
Oftentimes the experience was more profound 
than the attempted rationalisation of it. For 
language fails at many points. To understand 
what the philosopher really meant we must pene- 
trate into the life of his time, note the conditions 
by which he was surrounded, and the type of civil- 
isation which he rationalised or against which he 
reacted. Most of the philosophers were prophets, 
idealists. They not only lived more deeply in 
their age than most people, but were citizens of 

165 



1 66 Man and the Divine Order 

an ideal commonwealth, whose standards their 
fellow-men had not yet attained. To know what 
they would have said if they could have told all, 
we must try to attain the vision of the ideal 
which they beheld. For the greatness of their 
thought consisted in part in its attempt to pass 
beyond itself. The vision, the first-hand experi- 
ence, was more real than the faulty account of it 
which they were able to make. 

All this is particularly true of Plato. The 
better one understands Greek life the more likely 
one is to appreciate the force of his idealism. 
We should remember that he lived in the culminat- 
ing period of all that was highest in Greek life, 
most noble in its literature, and most beautiful in 
its art and architecture. We must therefore bear 
in mind all those excellencies for which we admire 
the Greeks. We must put ourselves back in 
imagination in the Athens of Pericles, the city of 
beauty, in an age of beauty. In addition we 
should note that Plato was a keen lover of all this 
beauty, one who deeply appreciated the arts, 
and one who, himself a "potential poet," as one 
scholar has called him, was an admirer of the 
great poets. Having all this clearly in mind, 
and remembering the types of government which 
prevailed in Sparta, Attica, and other states, we 
shall be able to appreciate in some measure the 
kind of idealism which could even find flaws in 



The Practical Idealism of Plato 167 

all this remarkable development, and aspire be- 
yond it to a still more noble beauty, too pure ever 
to be fully copied on this earth. For Plato ob- 
jected to certain phases of the art and poetry of 
his day, not because he had no appreciation of 
poetry or art, but because he judged by a higher 
standard, at once appreciative and critical. His 
standard was the moral ideal, the goodness of 
perfect justice and of idealistic religion. Conse- 
quently he objected even to the best poetry and 
the sweetest music, unless it tended to elevate the 
soul. In his account of the ideal state the imi- 
tative arts are discarded, the poets are banished 
except so far as their verses are educationally fit 
for the young mind to hear, and kinds of music 
are ruled out which nearly every music-lover 
would put in a high rank. 

The idealism of Plato must, then, be approached 
from its moral, its practical side. Philosophy 
was not, with the Greeks, the mere dialectical pur- 
suit of ultimate truth ; it was also the practice of 
virtue; one must be a philosopher in order to 
know what is real, what is worthy of the life of 
virtue. Many interests are therefore carried 
along, side by side, in Plato's dialogues. The dia- 
logues may be read now as treatises on education, 
now as discussions of political virtue; again, as 
expositions of idealistic metaphysics, or as argu- 
ments for individual morality. One needs to read 



168 Man and the Divine Order 

such a dialogue as the Republic again and again 
with different interests in mind. After all these 
readings, one is never sure that one is expounding 
Plato, so easy is it to read one's own theories into 
his writings. 

Emerson declared that every philosopher since 
these great Greek days has been either an Aristo- 
telian or a Platonist. It is indeed extremely dif- 
ficult to be original in any department of exact 
or idealistic thought which these men have not 
touched. Aristotle himself was a critic and in- 
terpreter of Plato. No thinker has ever been 
more influential. But the history of thought 
is full of Platonisms which Plato never held. 
Through Neo- Platonic sources historical Christ- 
ianity has itself been the recipient of much of 
this Platonism. We are all more Platonic than 
we realise until we actually live with Plato's 
dialogues. Possibly it is no discredit if one's in- 
terpretation of Plato is only one aspect of his 
philosophy, the aspect which one is tempera- 
mentally best fitted to understand; for if the 
interpretation be but a fragment it may neverthe- 
less be thus far true, and hence suggest the uni- 
versality of the doctrine which inspired it. Even 
Neo-Platonism is in Plato, that is, much of it 
is in one of the most mythical dialogues, from 
which it was chiefly developed; and some of 
the most negative criticisms made by Aristotle 



The Practical Idealism of Plato 169 

are already implied in one of the more analytical 
dialogues. 

So much, then, by way of preparation for the 
particular point of view of this chapter. We turn 
now to the philosophical tendencies which in part 
gave shape to Plato's idealism. The Greeks of old 
looked out upon the face of things as we look 
forth now, and noted the ever-changing character 
of the life about them. Hence they sought for a 
principle of explanation of this unceasing change. 
Heracleitus declared that there is nothing abiding, 
nothing permanent except the law of change. No 
one can step into the same river twice, for the 
same river is not there. Everything is in flux, 
ever on and on ; everything is Becoming. On the 
other hand, the Eleatic philosophers arrived at the 
opposite conclusion, namely, that only Being is, 
— there is no change, no Becoming; non-being is 
not. Another group of philosophers, the Pythag- 
oreans, found the ultimate reality of things in 
number. At length the Sophists came forward 
with their purely practical teachings. The great- 
est of these teachers could find no profounder 
statement to make, so tradition runs, than to 
declare that "man is the measure of all things." 
That is, man's thought at the moment is the only 
standard of truth and reality: knowledge is per- 
ception. That is right and true which seems so to 
you when you perceive it ; or, it is right because it 



170 Man and the Divine Order 

is according to custom. Finally, came Socrates 
with his high ethical ideals, his theory that know- 
ledge is virtue, his belief in intuition and the soul, 
and his searching method of dialectical investiga- 
tion. All this finds its place in Plato, who has 
both a theory of Being and of Becoming, of the 
passing perceptions of man and the truer reason 
of conceptual thinking, as well as a place for the 
moral ideal of Socrates. That which concerns us 
here is to note the central principles by which the 
unification of all these philosophical elements was 
attained. 

Generally speaking, there are two realms in 
Plato's universe, the world of appearances, of 
constant flux, Becoming, or change, and the world 
of pure, changeless Being. The first corresponds 
to the ever-flowing world of Heracleitus and, con- 
sidered by itself, it possesses no true being. The 
second, regarded by itself, eternally is, — it is not 
subject to Becoming, or change. Thus the two 
realms are sharply contrasted, and it is easy to 
quote passages which suggest that they are so far 
separate as to possess no connection. But this 
would be to take a fragmentary view of Plato's 
philosophy. In reality, the two realms are closely 
united, since the domain of Ideas is the ground or 
cause of the realm of appearances, and since the 
world of multiplicity exists for the sake of the Ideas, 
that is, for the good. God is profoundly good and 



The Practical Idealism of Plato 17 1 

wishes to share His goodness with all beings, wishes 
to create for the sake of the good — as we learn 
from the Timceus. Goodness is, in fact, the ideal 
end for which all things exist: the whole vast 
universe is organised for the benefit of its beauty, 
its truth, and perfection. However subordinate 
the visible world may be, it can only be under- 
stood with reference to the organising principles 
and causes which exist for the good. The visible 
world is not, therefore, in any sense the product of 
chance, but is the "imitation" of intelligence, is 
a marvellously adapted and well-ordered sphere in 
which there is a harmonious gradation from the 
self-sufficient good down to the purposive func- 
tions of matter in its crudest forms. All is nicely 
proportioned, adjusted. Everywhere symmetry 
and beauty have been as fully attained as the 
nature of the thing permitted. The physical 
world is only to be classed as "appearance," and 
hence declared unintelligible, when we regard 
it solely by itself. To discover the intelligible 
principle we must look beyond the visible to see 
why and how it came to be. Then we learn that 
for every group, kind, species of thing, in this 
richly complex world, there is an Idea or eternal 
"pattern" which gives it significance and organ- 
ises it in relation to all other things. The uni- 
verse as a whole is the " only-begotten, " the image 
of the intelligible, the perfect, and the good. It is 



17 2 Man and the Divine Order 

as fair and perfect, as abounding in beauty, as 
it could be and still be a visible world. For, 
obviously, the first place is accorded to the un- 
changeable, wholly beautiful, and perfect order 
of being which is not subject to the vicissitudes 
of the world of natural generation. 

Moreover, the soul of man is a denizen of both 
regions, and hence, for one who understands the 
principle of union, who knows what is real, there is 
no gulf between the two worlds. Through reason 
and insight the soul knows the superior order, as 
we shall presently see. Through sensation and 
opinion, the common experiences of life, it is made 
acquainted with the world of change. It is possi- 
ble for us to be so immersed in the life of sensation 
and opinion that we know not who we are or 
why we exist. But it is also possible to understand 
the purpose of life and the universal principle of 
organisation so that, by imitating the order and 
beauty of the universe, we shall become harmo- 
niously adjusted in our lives and appreciate the 
reason of things which unites us with the good. 

With these preliminary considerations in mind, 
let us enter for a moment into the realm of pure 
Being, the world of the moral law, the soul, and the 
perfect Ideas. This is the realm of the self -exist- 
ent, the ends or purposes of things ; whereas every- 
thing in the lower realm exists for the sake of 
something else. God, or the good, is ever first, as 



The Practical Idealism of Plato 173 

the supreme condition, the symmetry and beauty 
without which even the Ideas could not be. But 
the Ideas are the immediate objects of interest, 
since they give variety to the divine order, they 
are the archetypes or ideal ends of the multi- 
plicity of things in each group. Each is one, in- 
divisible, immutable, real, apart from any or all 
of its embodiments. Taken together, the Ideas 
constitute the perfect, divine order or ultimate 
constitution, far above the fluctuations of the 
sense- world, incapable of growth or decay. The 
Ideas are not themselves dependent on anything 
here below, but the value of that which changes 
consists in its reference to the unchangeable. 

Since the Ideas are above the world of natural 
generation, of opinion, and sense perception, our 
ordinary modes of thinking are incapable of ap- 
prehending these pure realities. Hence the Ideas 
are known to men only by intuition, or by that 
dialectical process which truly discovers the in- 
telligible principle of the world. But the soul, 
although imprisoned in the body, and compelled 
to participate in the world of change, nevertheless 
belongs far more intimately to this heavenly 
order. Long ago the soul beheld by pure insight 
these perfect archetypes of beauty, truth, and the 
good. The spiritual eye of the soul enables it to 
see with unclouded vision; and what is once be- 
held in all its purity is never wholly forgotten. 



174 Man and the Divine Order 

Meeting with imperfect copies of these Ideas in 
the world of sense, the soul recollects the perfect 
originals in heaven. Thus memory gives a direct 
clue to the supreme principles of thought or reason 
whereby the true theory of knowledge is discov- 
ered. True knowledge is possible just because 
there is Being which abides, 1 a principle of ulti- 
mate organisation. 

The things which you and I perceive in this 
world of change and appearances are imitations, 
aspirations after these heavenly Ideas. For ex- 
ample, take the conception of the beautiful. Ac- 
cording to Plato, there is an absolute Idea of the 
beautiful, a unity, immutable in the divine order. 
The many beautiful but changeable objects which 
you and I see are imperfect resemblances of that 
absolute beauty. Likewise, there is a permanent, 
absolute justice, greatness, and the like. Perfect 
justice is the standard which all men seek to at- 
tain. The reason for our moral struggles, the pur- 
pose of our mundane existence, the meaning of all 
that is obscure is seen in so far as we apprehend 
the divine archetypes. For the Ideas are at once 
the meaning and the essence of things, their real 
nature. 

Highest of all the Ideas is the good, which Plato 
tells us can only be seen with difficulty. The good 
is described as the author of knowledge in all 

1 See the Cratylus, p. 440. 



The Practical Idealism of Plato 175 

things known, the source of all that is most use- 
ful, "parent of light," source of truth and reason. 
The good is the supreme essence, more beautiful 
than even beauty itself, the single Idea of the 
many good things, universal author of all things 
beautiful and right. Only when we know the 
goodness of things do we truly know them; and 
when we know the essence we learn that all is fair 
and sound and true. God, parent of all good 
things, is just, good, and true, not the creator of 
that which is evil; and He should be always be 
represented in this pure light. 1 

The Ideas should not then be thought of as 
separate or ultimately independent, but as consti- 
tuting the divine order, the central principle of 
which is the good. In that divine world har- 
mony and beauty everywhere reign. There is no 
time there, for time consists of parts, while 
eternity is one and unbroken ; it is the nature of 
intelligible being to be eternal. 2 There is naught 
to break in and interfere, for there is no other 
reality. No progress is possible since the Ideas 
are eternally perfect and their organisation com- 
plete. Only in the world of generation is there 
struggle to attain, and even there the development 
is toward the fixed types of pure, changeless Being. 
Whenever we think truly of this mundane sphere 
we judge it not by its flux or change, but by its 

1 Republic, Bk. ii., 380. 2 Timcsus, p. 38. 



176 Man and the Divine Order 

purposive aspiration toward the divine order. 
Whenever we truly seek justice, for example, or 
court wisdom and the other virtues, we pattern 
our life after the absolute ideals, not after the 
relative standards of men. The lower domain is 
for ever unintelligible by itself. 

Thus, wide apart as are the two worlds, there 
is ever a close connection, the character of which 
we understand in so far as we truly know the soul 
and lead the life of the idealist. 

So much by way of brief suggestion of the 
fundamental principles of Plato's idealism. The 
clue to the practical idealism is found in this same 
conception of order, already suggested in part. 
In the Gorgias we read that "communion and 
friendship and orderliness and temperance and 
justice bind together heaven and earth and gods 
and men, and that this universe is therefore 
called Cosmos or order, not disorder or misrule." r 
This is part of a long argument for virtue in which 
the word "order" frequently appears. We are 
told, for example, that every man should be his 
own ruler, temperate, master of his desires and 
passions. 2 Orderliness is a basis for happiness; 
hence man must know the relative value of pleas- 
ures and pains, must make life an art, the aim of 
which shall be the good. Therefore the good man 
is he who says and does that which is virtuous 

1 Gorgias, p. 508, Jowett's translation. 2 Ibid., p. 495. 



The Practical Idealism of Plato 177 

with reference to a standard. 1 He does not act 
at random, but has method, system in everything, 
like the artist. " The artist disposes all things in 
order, and compels the one part to harmonise and 
accord with the other part, until he has constructed 
a regular and systematic whole." Thus the good 
soul is orderly, harmonious. Nothing proceeds by 
chance, but there is beauty, art, system through- 
out life, because there is wisdom, temperance, 
justice within. These terms are practically inter- 
changeable with Plato. Truth is essential to vir- 
tue, that is, knowledge of what is enduring, worth 
while. Yet art, beauty, is also essential. The 
good is ''the proper order inhering in each thing" ; 
but the good is also the wise, the just. He who 
truly desires to be happy must practise temper- 
ance, but this is impossible without the other 
virtues which together constitute the good life. 

Thus, as the true artist endeavours to do " well 
and perfectly whatever he does," so the man of 
justice and wisdom seeks to round out his life, to 
be at once holy and a useful citizen, well-bal- 
anced in his private life, and orderly in all his so- 
cial activities. And then Plato rises to the great 
thought of the universe as an order, Cosmos, in the 
passage I have already quoted. We thus see in 
what sense the Idea of the good rules over all 
things, how the conception of order is at once 

1 Gorgias, p. 503. 



178 Man and the Divine Order 

practical and philosophical, a principle of art and 
of morals. 

The conception of order appears here and there 
all through the dialogues. The unity of virtue is 
the great idea of the Protagoras, in which the opti- 
mistic statement is made that "the only real ill- 
doing is the deprivation of knowledge. . . ." 
For "no wise man will allow . . . that any 
human being errs voluntarily, or voluntarily does 
evil and dishonourable actions. ' ' r "To prefer evil 
to good is not in human nature," we are told. 2 
Hence the true cause of lack of self-control, with 
all the disorderliness that follows, is ignorance; 
and the real remedy is that wisdom which at once 
implies courage, justice, and the other virtues 
whose unity is in the divine order. As there is 
order, balance, in the universe at large, so there is 
need of balance and rhythm in the life of man. 

The conception of virtue as order, and of order- 
liness among the virtues, is one of the strongest 
ideas in Plato's system. As the universe is mani- 
fold, rich, beautiful, and has many ideal ends, no 
one of which suffices by itself, so moral ideals 
are many, and none is adequate alone. Man as 
a moral being is multiform. He should not seek 
one virtue alone, — for example, courage without 
wisdom. Any given virtue implies all the others, 
and Plato constantly defines the virtues in terms 

1 Protagoras, p. 345. 2 Ibid., p. 358. 



The Practical Idealism of Plato 1 79 

of one another. Yet one must pursue each end 
as of special worth, and in all this pursuit avoid 
excess, seek beauty, remember to maintain order, 
balance, adjustment. 

The spirit of Plato, the artist, speaks most per- 
suasively on this theme. It is related of him that 
as a youth he was noted for his temperance, his 
moderation. But we also feel the spirit of Plato 
the unflinching moralist, and there is a depth of 
moral earnestness in dialogues like the Protagoras 
and Gorgias which inspires keen enthusiasm for 
the right. 

In the Meno, Plato assures us that "all nature is 
akin." In the Sophist, we read that all things are 
"the work of divine art," products of the "divine 
reason and knowledge." Also in the Timeus, one 
of the most mythical of the dialogues, the account 
of creation makes the same principle clear. God, 
as creator, has done His work perfectly, He has 
brought forth all things in order, in harmony, and 
due proportion. 

But the conception of order is most fully worked 
out in the Republic. It is customary to think of 
this great dialogue as a theory of the ideal state, 
and therefore to estimate, perhaps condemn it, 
because its theory of the state does not coincide 
with one's own. But the inquiry into the nature 
of justice in the state is simply the main thread of 
interest ; virtue is studied first in the state because 



180 Man and the Divine Order 

it can best be regarded at large before it is seen in 
the individual. The Republic as a whole is also an 
inquiry into the nature of reality, and the place 
and power of virtue in the divine order. It is the 
good, as we have seen, which stands at the sum- 
mit of the unity of virtue, and the good is to be 
understood in relation to Plato's entire idealism. 
Thus we shall fail to see the scope of Plato's eth- 
ics if we limit the theory of justice to a certain 
type of the state. Justice as used by Plato is a 
broad term, and means what is right, what is 
ethical, in a very large sense. For example, it is 
spoken of in the Republic as the " proper human 
virtue," the "greatest good," "the excellence of 
the soul," as the wise, the beautiful, and the like. 
It is connected with friendship, and with harmony. 
It is the ultimate cause and condition of (the ex- 
istence of) virtue, includes individuality, respects 
property, relates to the natural order and govern- 
ment in the soul, the retributions and readjust- 
ments of the future life, and it crowns the virtues. 
It is based on knowledge of the real, the true, 
the eternal, hence is connected with the ultimate 
order, the real system of things. Consequently, 
a man must be a philosopher in the profoundest 
sense of the word in order to know and practise 
justice. It is no wonder that Plato chose the 
philosopher as the guardian of his ideal state ; for 
only one whose thought and life were the incarna- 



The Practical Idealism of Plato 181 

tion of justice, as thus broadly defined, would in 
any sense be worthy. Thus it is that when we 
approach the subject from the individual point 
of view we begin to see the full bearing of this 
ethical idealism. 

He whose mind is fixed upon true being [says 
Plato], 1 has no time to look down upon the affairs of 
men, or to be filled with jealousy and enmity in the 
struggle against them; his eye is ever fixed and di- 
rected towards fixed and immutable principles, which 
he sees neither injuring nor injured by another, but 
all in order, moving according to reason; these he 
imitates, and to these he would, as far as he can, con- 
form himself. Can a man help imitating that with 
which he holds reverential converse? . . . And 
the philosopher also, conversing with the divine and 
immutable, becomes a part of that divine and im- 
mutable order, as far as nature allows. 

It is the man, then, who apprehends the divine 
order, and whose own life is orderly, who exempli- 
fies Plato's ideal. We have already noted the 
connection between the conception of order and 
the unity of virtue. The ideal man of the Re- 
public is one who is individual, who does some 
one thing well, who, above all, is "at unity with 
himself." Such a man is well-proportioned, har- 
monious, graceful, governed by reason, at peace 

1 Republic, Bk. vi., 500. 



1 82 Man and the Divine Order 

within ; he is one man, not many ; he has attained 
a ''friendly harmony" among the virtues, his life 
is exemplified by "the beauty of reason." Bal- 
ance among the virtues, that is, temperance, is 
thus the basis of a sound social life. There must 
be self-control, order at the centre ; then the whole 
life will be full of rhythm and harmony. Thus 
we are told that " good language and harmony and 
grace and rhythm depend on simplicity . . . 
the simplicity of a truly and nobly ordered 
mind." T 

There are many suggestions to show how this 
adjustment may be attained. Plato divides the 
psychical principle in man into three parts. The 
highest of these is reason which, in the well- 
ordered life, rules the two lower principles, yet is 
aided by them, when they are " not corrupted by 
education." Again, Plato describes the nature of 
man as consisting of a lower and a higher activity, 
more or less in conflict until understood and 
brought into order. Love appears as the ally of 
order: " True love is a love of beauty and order — 
temperate and harmonious. ' ' In the Phadrus and 
Symposium, this philosophy of love is developed 
more at length. Every one has heard of "Pla- 
tonic love," but not every one has heard of love 
as Plato actually wrote about it. In the Phcedrus, 
Plato describes, in the form of a myth, the contest 

1 Republic, Bk. iii., 401. 



The Practical Idealism of Plato 183 

between the soul (which comes down from heaven 
pure, with reminiscences of the beautiful) and the 
lower and higher natures, which are compared to 
two chariot horses. There is both a sensuous love 
and a higher love, and the contest is often fierce 
between them. But the soul that has been borne 
down and has suffered is thereby informed, is bet- 
ter off than the one that has not met life in all 
these phases. Great blessings come to the lover, 
" heavenly blessings"; it is not all strife and 
passion, not all "madness." 

In the Symposium, the need of discriminating 
between the lower and higher loves is also pointed 
out. "The love of the noble mind, which is in 
union with the unchangeable, is everlasting." J 
The ideal is to unite the two loves into one har- 
mony, which is "an agreement, a symphony of 
opposites." True love, then, is "harmonious in 
all its actions"; it is "concerned with the good, 
and ... is perfected in company with tem- 
perance and justice." "Love set in order the 
empire of the gods — the love of beauty." " From 
the love of the beautiful has sprung every good 
in heaven and earth." Thus true love is inti- 
mately associated with the wise, the beautiful, and 
the good; and in the profoundest sense "There is 
nothing which men love but the good." " Love is 
only birth in beauty, whether of body or soul." 2 

1 Symposium, p. 184. * Ibid., p. 206. 



1 84 Man and the Divine Order 

True love, therefore, conceives and brings forth 
children in beauty. Whether these are children in 
the flesh, or thoughts of love, they should be pro- 
duced in beauty. ' ' He who would proceed rightly 
in this matter should begin in youth to turn to 
beautiful forms . . . out of which he should 
create fair thoughts." And then comes the cli- 
max: he who has been rightly instructed in re- 
gard to love, who beholds the "beautiful in due 
order and succession," at last has a vision of a 
single science, "which is the science of beauty 
everywhere." " 

Love, then, is one of the many qualities in 
man's life which are to be "set in order." Life 
is a science, it is an art, and we must possess that 
wisdom which reveals the fitting proportions of 
things. Moderation, balance, rhythm, harmony, 
are words which Plato so often uses that we must 
repeat them frequently and remember that tem- 
perance is essential to all the goods of the soul. 
"The temperate man is the friend of God, for he is 
like Him." 2 Yet Plato has to admit that "the 
whole multitude of men lack temperance in their 
lives, either from ignorance or from want of self- 
control, or both." 3 The word " temperance " in 
Plato means so much that Jowett, his great 
translator, tells us that we should understand by 
it not only temperance, as we use the word, but 

1 Symposium, p. 210. 2 Laws, iv., 716. 3 Ibid., v., 734. 



The Practical Idealism of Plato 185 

also, in different connections, moderation, mod- 
esty, discretion, and wisdom. In one of his 
shorter dialogues, the Charmides, Plato gives a de- 
scription of a beautiful youth who is the embodi- 
ment of temperance, although his virtue is not yet 
self-conscious. "Excessive pains and pleasures 
are justly to be regarded as the greatest diseases 
of the soul." x 

It is the soul which is the governing principle, 
and which is to attain this poise, this balance, be- 
tween tendencies, virtues, pleasures, and pains. 
Remember that the soul is not only immersed in 
the flesh, but contemplates the supersensible Ideas 
by clear intuition. The thought of the soul is 

best when the mind is gathered into herself and none 
of these things trouble her — neither sounds nor sights, 
nor pain nor any pleasure — when she has as little as 
possible to do with the body, and has no bodily sense 
or feeling, but is aspiring after being. 2 . . . Re- 
turning into herself she reflects ; then she passes into 
the realm of purity, and eternity, and immortality, 
and unchangeableness, which are her kindred, and 
with them she ever lives, when she is by herself and 
is not let or hindered ; then she ceases from her erring 
ways, and, being in communion with the unchanging, 
is unchanging. And this state of the soul is called 
wisdom. . . . The soul is in the very likeness of 
the divine, and immortal and intelligible. 3 

1 Tiniczus, p. 87. 2 Phcedo, p. 66. 3 Ibid., pp. 79, 80. 



1 86 Man and the Divine Order 

The soul uses the body as its instrument of per- 
ception, and it possesses a divine ruling principle 
over the body, in opposition to the bodily desires. 
It was made prior to the body to be its ' ' ruler and 
mistress." * But no soul-life is " Platonic" which 
is one-sided. In many beautiful passages Plato 
points out the need of balance, order, between soul 
and body. The soul should be surrounded by 
beautiful objects that its life may become beauti- 
ful. There should be gymnastic for the body to 
give strength to this balance, and music for the 
mind to aid in the attainment of rhythm. It is 
thus the rhythmical and harmonious nature, in 
body, mind, and soul, that is characterised by 
temperance. Both soul and body are needed. 
Plato warns us that we should 

not move the body without the soul or the soul with- 
out the body, and thus they will aid one another, and 
be healthy and well-balanced. 2 . . . And when a 
beautiful soul harmonises with a beautiful form, and 
the two are cast in one mould, that will be the fairest 
of sights to him who has the eye to contemplate the 
vision. 3 . . . Not that the good body improves 
the soul, but that the good soul improves the body. 

If any one finds it difficult to attain the bal- 
ance of which Plato speaks, he is reminded of the 
power of an ideal occupation : 

1 Timcsus, p. 34. 2 Ibid., p. 89. 3 Republic, iii., 403. 



The Practical Idealism of Plato 187 

He whose desires are strong in one direction will 
have them weaker in others; they will be like a 
stream which has been drawn off into another chan- 
nel. ... He whose desires are drawn toward 
knowledge in every form will be absorbed in the 
pleasures of the soul, and will hardly feel bodily 
pleasure — if he be a true philosopher and not a sham 
one. 1 

It is thus the life in the ideal direction which solves 
the problems of our unregeneracy. 

" There should be no secret corner of meanness ; 
for meanness is entirely opposed to a soul that is 
always longing after the whole of things both 
divine and human." Plato goes so far as to say 
that he who is harmoniously constituted will not 
be unjust or hard in his dealings. Truth itself is 
akin to this proportion of things. Besides other 
qualities in our philosophical life, we should there- 
fore seek for a " well-proportioned and gracious 
mind whose own nature will of herself be drawn to 
the true being of everything." 

Plato's theory of education is so well known 
that it requires only a brief mention to show that 
it is an application of the same practical idealism 
which we are here considering. Plato reminds his 
readers of those mistaken theorists who think they 
can put a knowledge into the soul which was not 
there before, like giving eyes to the blind. It is a 

1 Republic, vi., 486. 



1 88 Man and the Divine Order 

question of giving the soul's powers the right 
direction. True education is, first, of the inner 
being, it makes for virtue, and greatly tends to 
humanise men in their social relations. Educa- 
tion is indeed " the one great thing," and the direc- 
tion in which it " starts a man will determine his 
future life." It should begin in the nursery and 
continue throughout life; yes, it should begin 
even before birth, and with the plays of children. 
"The spirit of law must be imparted to them in 
music, and the spirit of order, instead of disorder, 
will attend them in all their actions, and make 
them grow." x The youth should begin to be an 
artisan, a carpenter, or warrior even in his play, 
and thus be taught from the first to fill a place in 
the state. Plato defines education in his maturest 
work, the Laws, as "that training which is given 
by suitable habits to the first instincts of virtue in 
children." 2 It is the "constraining and directing 
of youth towards that right reason, which the law 
affirms, and which the experience of the best of 
our elders has agreed to be truly right." 3 Ex- 
ample is one of the great powers in education, 
and it is a cardinal principle that the elders should 
never be seen doing that which the young ought 
not to imitate. "The best way of training the 
young is to train yourself at the same time." 4 

1 Republic, iv., 42. 3 Ibid., ii., 660. 

2 Laws, ii., 653. 4 Ibid., v., 730. 



The Practical Idealism of Plato 189 

The virtuous legislator will therefore exhort par- 
ents to train themselves that they may rightly in- 
fluence their children. Reverence for children is 
thus as important in its way as respect for parents, 
for the aged, and for the laws and religious cus- 
toms of the state. Again, the legislator should see 
to it that numerical order is preserved in the edu- 
cation of youth. It is important for educators 
to consider the after -benefits of this and other 
studies, not only in domestic economy, but in art 
and politics. Music, and dancing, and literature 
should be of that high order calculated to further 
the growth of virtue. But Plato emphatically 
says that "the sum of education is right training 
in the nursery." x It is "the first and fairest 
thing that the best of men can ever have, and 
which, though liable to take a wrong direction, is 
capable of reformation. And this work of reform- 
ation is the great business of every man while he 
lives." 

There are plans and methods to be applied in 
Plato's ideal state which we should dismiss as 
impractical, if we judged by human life as it 
actually exists. Plato proposed to regulate by 
law much that we should regard as pertaining to 
the private life. He was overfond of numerical 
division, and planned his state on an exact basis, 
with a precise number of citizens, the number 

1 Laws, i., p. 644. 



i9° Man and the Divine Order 

always to be maintained. But the important 
consideration is the principle which governed his 
discussions throughout. I once heard Plato 
sweepingly condemned on account of his plan for 
community of wives and children. Consider for a 
moment how shallow this criticism is. As I have 
before said, Plato's inquiry into the ideal state is 
undertaken by way of discovering what justice is, 
what virtue is. The highest possible virtue is his 
ideal. Hence he proposed in the Republic a plan 
for the better development of virtuous servants of 
the state as a remedy for unfortunate conditions. 
The communism was to be among certain classes 
only, and was only a step beyond social conditions 
which existed in Plato's time. But Plato evid- 
ently concluded that this plan was impractical. 
He therefore discarded it in his later work, the 
Laws. But the Laws, his longest dialogue, is sel- 
dom read, and so his later theory is not well 
known. But even if he had retained his plan, it 
would have a very subordinate place. The great 
merit of Plato is that he did not " descend to 
meet . ' ' He did not begin by asking, What are the 
social conditions to-day? and, What sort of state 
is possible ? That which exists round about us is 
the realm of appearances: only in the invisible 
world is that which is truly real and enduring. 
It would be a base surrender of the ideal to begin 
by asking what is possible. The ideal state which 



The Practical Idealism of Plato 19 1 

Plato discusses exists confessedly ''in idea only," 
for there is no such state on earth. 

In heaven . . . there is laid up a pattern of 
such a city and he who desires may behold this, and 
beholding, govern himself accordingly. But whether 
there really is or ever will be such an one is of no im- 
portance to him: for he will act according to the 
laws of that city and of no other. 1 

The ideal state is the moral republic of God. 
Any one who is able to distinguish Being from Be- 
coming, to live for the realities of things instead of 
for the appearances, and, above all, he who lives 
righteously, is already a member of that state. 
It is too pure an ideal ever to be fully realised on 
this earth, but the important thing is to ap- 
proximate it, to copy the perfect as well as we can. 
Hence Plato is extremely practical precisely be- 
cause he refuses to capitulate to the demands of 
what is eulogistically called "practical" by those 
whose eyes are blinded to the eternal. Plato is 
consistent throughout in holding to the ideal as 
something to be pursued. The ideal is above and 
beyond. It is in striving to approximate it that 
our lives have worth. Without the ideal, life is 
mere appearance, valueless. Inspired by the ideal, 
we may really lift our lives towards the true, the 
beautiful, and the good; we may really become 

1 Republic, ix., 595. 



i9 2 Man and the Divine Order 

"at one with" ourselves, orderly, just, sane, ra- 
tional. Unless we understand Plato from this 
point of view we shall miss his larger meaning. 
He has been discarded by some because he sund- 
ered his two worlds, because he put the divine 
order, the realm of the Ideas, in heaven, far from 
the world of change here below. But the two are 
not sundered if you see the place and function of 
the Ideas. Yonder rose in its beauty is one of the 
many beautiful things whose existence is made 
significant by aspiring, as it were, after " absolute 
beauty. ' ' The conduct of the righteous man is yet 
nearer the divine order, for it is rendered noble by 
sharing in the good. Our rational nature is like- 
wise a sharing in the divine. "Reason," Plato 
says, "is beautiful and gentle." How different 
from the condemnation with which reason is some- 
times dismissed nowadays! To press through to 
the reason of things is to behold their true reality, 
whereas opinion leaves us in the realm of "genera- 
tion," appearances. Reason is order, the divine 
beauty. Reason is also the system of the virtues, 
their unity. Hence, as we have seen, man must 
possess that wisdom which enables him to dis- 
tinguish the desirable from the undesirable, to 
avoid excess, attain balance, rhythm, and har- 
mony; and that wisdom is the prime essential of 
the life of reason. 

The importance of this rational interpretation of 



The Practical Idealism of Plato 193 

the world is made clear in the PJrilebus, one of the 
most profound of the dialogues. The discussion is 
in large part an inquiry into the relative merits of 
pleasure and wisdom regarded as candidates for 
the highest good. The good is defined as the per- 
fect, the sufficient. But neither wisdom nor pleas- 
ure proves to be adequate alone. Pleasure is of 
many kinds, varying from the vehement, dis- 
tracting pleasures to the pure delights of the life of 
thought. In itself, pleasure contains no principle 
of organisation. It is necessary, then, to discrim- 
inate its kinds, select the kinds which are capa- 
ble of organisation as aids to the good, and assign 
each to its proper place. This is the work of rea- 
son and demands insight into the total organis- 
ation of things. First in order in the universal 
system stands symmetry, beauty, measure, of 
whose existence as the foundation principle of 
things we everywhere have evidence in the uni- 
verse, which is "not left to the guidance of an 
irrational and random chance," but is "ordered 
and governed by a marvellous intelligence and 
wisdom." 1 That is, "mind orders all things": 
there is "a mighty infinite and an adequate limit 
. . . which orders and arranges years and sea- 
sons and months." Next to this ultimate meas- 
ure of all things comes the measured, that is, the 
perfect Ideas or archetypes. Then follow mind 

1 Philebus, p. 28. 
J 3 



194 Man and the Divine Order 

and wisdom — as you and I ordinarily know them 
— next, the pure arts and sciences, and, in the 
fifth place, the pure and true pleasures. Pleas- 
ure, considered by itself, belongs to the world of 
natural generation, that is, it is a "process"; 
while true Being is unchangeable, has no natural 
generation. The utmost that can be said of a 
"process" is that it exists for the sake of some 
essence or good. The essence is an Idea, absolute 
and eternal. Thus the place of pleasure is not 
understood till it be regarded from above in the 
light of the essences to which it is contributory. 
These essences, we have seen, are second in rank 
to the organising beauty, which measures and 
adjusts all things in relation to the good. 

To find the place of pleasure in practical life a 
man must, then, attain that orderly adjustment 
which we have been considering all along, — the 
state where pleasure is not permitted to run to 
excess, where there is stability, moderation. In 
short, man's experiences must be organised ac- 
cording to the principle of rationality or intelli- 
gence exemplified in the universe at large. But 
Plato assures us that it is not sufficient to possess 
knowledge of that which is within the "divine 
circle," we must also know the "human sphere and 
circle." * The realms of the divine and the hu- 
man, the Ideas and natural generation, are not so 
1 Philebus, p. 63. 



The Practical Idealism of Plato 195 

far apart in this dialogue. Indeed, to understand 
the principle of organisation of the divine order is 
to see that the same law holds in the lowest level 
of life, in so far as that life may be brought into 
relation with the good. In deepest truth the do- 
main of the good is not far from every one of us, 
for Plato says without qualification that "all per- 
cipient beings desire and hunt after good, and are 
eager to catch and have the good about them, and 
care not for the attainment of anything of which 
good is not a part." * That is, all men are stirred 
by desire, and what they really desire is the 
good. Enlighten them to the full and they will 
consciously and eagerly pursue the good. 

" Ignorance is the greatest of diseases," Plato 
assures us. Each of us has in his bosom two 
counsellors. The essential is to know that when 
the soul is turned down into the lower nature, into 
the shows of things, it is deceived, imprisoned. 
There is no unity there and never can be. The 
visible world is the region of multiplicity. But 
that which is real is one. Plato therefore searches 
for the reality of whatever he considers. Be- 
neath pages and pages of what many would call 
dry reading, word -playing, and the drawing of 
hair-splitting distinctions this is the great in- 
terest. When some one comes forward with a 
theory, Socrates, who is usually the chief speaker, 

1 Philebus, p. 21. 



196 Man and the Divine Order 

immediately asks him what he means by his general 
statements. The Sophist who is going about per- 
suading people of whatever they wish to believe 
is taken to task for not first considering what is 
right, what people ought to be persuaded to believe 
and do. Fallacy after fallacy is exposed, error is 
run to earth, and the Sophists are repeatedly re- 
futed. Oftentimes the conclusion is left in frag- 
mentary shape, but it is there. Thus all the arts 
and sciences of the philosopher's day are analysed, 
knowledge is investigated, piety, rhetoric, the fine 
arts, poetry, friendship, and the like. In each 
case, it is the universal that is important, not the 
differences. Virtue is a whole, poetry is a whole, 
art is a whole. The art of painting, for example, 
is a whole, and he who really understands the 
whole knows the parts. He who would be master 
of an art "must know the real nature of every- 
thing.' ' x It is the reality, not the imitation, that is 
desirable; the reality, not the appearance of vir- 
tue. The search for realities immediately takes us 
into the invisible order, where we begin to behold 
things as wholes from the point of view of eternity. 
Most men are dreamers ; they put the resemblance 
in place of the real object. But we must know 
both the Idea and its objects, and never confuse 
them. 

He who truly understands will therefore make 

1 Phcedrus, p. 263. 



The Practical Idealism of Plato 197 

only that distinction between the worlds which is 
required by reason and the purity of the Ideas. 
He who sees the divinity of reason in things will 
be able to bring unity into his entire life. For 
Plato makes no separation between the secular and 
the religious life. The worship and pursuit of the 
Ideas is religion, the spiritual life. But it is also 
the true social life, the life of politics. For poli- 
tics did not mean with Plato what it means in 
New York. It was one phase of the life of virtue. 
To pursue justice or virtue in the state was 
something sacred. Justice is the very foundation, 
"the health" of the true state. Right education 
" makes a man eagerly pursue the ideal perfection 
of citizenship." " There are no ideals too high to 
be striven after. The true follower of Plato will 
often breathe the prayer which is put into the 
mouth of Socrates, at the end of the Phcedrus: 

Beloved Pan, and all ye other gods who haunt this 
place, give me beauty in the inward soul; and may 
the outward and inward man be at one. May I 
reckon the wise to be the wealthy, and may I have 
such a quantity of gold as none but the temperate 
can carry. 

The great value of Plato for us who live in a 
distant world, and believe in evolution, is the 
power of the ideal as a clue to the divine order. 

1 Laws, i., 644. 



198 Man and the Divine Order 

His idealism is as practical to-day as in the great 
Greek days of old. For it is founded on a principle 
that is eternally true, however much the account 
of it may be mingled with outgrown conceptions. 
Plato's organising principle is still the soundest 
theory of its type that has been proposed. Both 
in conception and in method of exposition his 
theory of the divine order is the most valuable aid. 
His dialogues also put the mind into the right 
mood for productive yet critical investigation. 

Plato believed in the essential goodness of man, 
and the beauty of the universe. He is a thor- 
ough-going optimist of a keenly rational type. The 
constitution of things is, for him, entirely sound 
and sweet. There is no evil power. Clothed in 
their right minds, all men really love the good. 
They do wrong through folly, intemperance, ignor- 
ance. No man would either voluntarily choose 
the greater of two evils, or chose evil at all, if he 
saw what he was doing. Evil is solely attribut- 
able to the ignorantly directed activities of man, 
asleep in the darkness of the world of sense. Let 
a man hold his head up and behold the sun, and 
he shall find that all things are fair. All things 
are more or less imperfect copies of the beautiful. 
Man is by nature a moral being; the universe is 
moral. The entire rational organisation of things 
is for the sake of the moral ideal. 

Modern philosophers would tell us that Plato 



The Practical Idealism of Plato 199 

overlooks many of the conditions of virtue ; that he 
passes lightly by the dark spots on the world. 
But one might reply that modern thinkers are apt 
to forget the ideal meaning of life's conflicts. The 
important thing is not the darkness, but the light, 
the discovery that the darkness is darkness — that 
is one of the great messages of Plato. There is a 
moral law, we are souls, and there is an eternal 
order to which we belong. Let each begin to live 
as a loyal citizen of the eternal republic, and the 
other things will take care of themselves. The 
lower order of life simply cannot be understood by 
itself. You must see the eternal to know the tem- 
poral. Therefore turn your vision towards those 
perfect Ideas whose collective being constitutes 
the divine order. 

There need be nothing far off and metaphysical 
in this mode of life. Put into terms of plain 
speech the Ideas are ideals. Only we must re- 
member that for Plato the Ideas are not brought 
forth by reflection on our sense experience, they 
are not psychological ideas. If, then, you would 
make a concrete application, do not think of your 
friend as his physical appearance leads you to 
picture him. Do not think of his ideal as mere 
prudence, the best he can attain in this life. But 
regard your friend as a soul, a word which means 
more for Plato than for any one who has ever 
used it. The ideal of vour friend is that which 



200 Man and the Divine Order 

would give his life the divinest significance as a 
citizen of the republic of God. It is a " heavenly- 
pattern," a unity of goodness and beauty, com- 
bined in unique fashion, that is, fit to do its own 
particular work as well as it can be done. A pro- 
duct of the divine art, it must itself be an artist, 
poised, balanced, harmonious, rhythmical, ord- 
erly. Thus shall the soul be worthy of a place 
among the Ideas. Truly, Plato's Republic would 
be realised, if we could regard all men from the 
standpoint of the ideal. 



CHAPTER IX 

PLOTINUS AND SPINOZA 

THE usual tendency of those who claim to have 
enjoyed the beatific vision is to clothe their 
thought in negatively mystical language. Noth- 
ing is more distasteful to the rationalist than any 
form of mysticism. Hence the supposed seer is 
scorned, ridiculed, if not classed as a fanatic. Be- 
cause the seer is unable to account for his vision 
except in negative terms it is assumed by the ra- 
tionalist that the mystic's supernal world is an 
absolute blank and therefore unworthy of invest- 
igation. The treatment accorded the mystic is 
more negative than the mystic's own account of 
his beatitude. It is easy to say that the fault lies 
wholly with the rationalist, who seems to be hope- 
lessly perverse, and thereby shows that he is 
entirely unillumined. Obviously, the spiritual 
vision is primarily an affair of experience. The 
reality for which the mystic pleads is immediate, 
the description is necessarily derived and sec- 
ondary. If you have ascended the heights, you 
know what it is to have the vision, and if another 

201 



202 Man and the Divine Order 

scorns you it is clear that he has not dwelt on 
high. Yet, to turn down the rationalist in this 
superior fashion is as absurd as for the rationalist 
to despise the mystic. There is another way of 
looking at mysticism. Perhaps half the fault lies 
with the mystic, after all. Let us examine an 
historical instance to see what we may learn, 
namely, the Neo-Platonism of Plotinus. 

In order to appreciate the character of this mys- 
tical system it is well to remember that the age 
of Plato and Aristotle was in many respects the 
most remarkable intellectual age the world has 
ever seen. Yet, as scepticism usually, for a time, 
succeeds belief, so, despite the profound conclu- 
sions of Plato and his great pupil, when the 
masters were gone their followers lost sight of 
many of their soundest rational results. Hence, 
the period to which we turn to study the rise of 
mysticism was in many respects an age of doubt 
and restless search. The religious period which 
culminated in the system of Plotinus (born 204 
a.d., at Lycopolis, in Egypt) was an age when 
satisfaction was sought beyond the human, be- 
yond reason, above all finite knowledge. It was 
a time of strong belief in renunciation and ascet- 
icism, a period of longing for salvation through 
union with the divine, a search for supernatural 
revelation, a higher authority. One of the im- 
mediate causes of this longing was a sense of dis- 



Plotinus and Spinoza 203 

satisfaction with the dualism between spirit and 
matter bequeathed by the philosophy of Plato and 
Aristotle, whose rationalism seemed to the pro- 
phets of this religious period to be inadequate. 
The pathway of reason apparently closed, there 
was an ardent desire to discover a state of inner 
independence of the world, to find the higher 
unity which the world of sensation and discursive 
reasoning failed to disclose. 

We need not here concern ourselves with the 
various synthetic attempts to solve this problem, 1 
nor consider to what extent the Alexandrian 
mystics may have been influenced by traditions 
which came from Oriental sources. Suffice it that 
the usual pathway of philosophy was deserted, 
and that gradually a doctrine was developed 
which gave classic expression to mysticism. We 
are admitted into the heart of that doctrine when 
we read the description of what Plotinus called 
to TT/owrov (the First), that is, the supreme reality. 
How that Being is discovered we shall presently 
consider. Let us first note how it is defined. 

Although the First is said to be self-included 
unity, self-sufficient, the creator and source of 
everything, yet the moment the attempt is made 
to conceive it in terms of attributes the audacious 

1 For an account of this whole period see Windelband, 
History of Philosophy, Part II., chap. ii. See also Inge's 
Christian Mysticism, chaps, iii., iv. 



204 Man and the Divine Order 

thinker is informed that the First is beyond all 
conception and beyond all attributes ; infinite be- 
cause incomprehensible, unique, before all kinds, 
impersonal, unchangeable, absolutely transcend- 
ent, separated from the finite, without corporeal 
properties, even above mind. In short, the First 
is not properly an object of knowledge at all, but 
is unspeakable. The First is therefore only defin- 
able by what it is not. It is not substance, not 
quality, not reason, not soul, not in motion, not in 
place, not in time, absolutely simple, inexpress- 
ible. One can only describe the First by repeat- 
ing what the ancient Hindoo sages said to those 
who sought to define Brahman, "Not this, not 
this," whenever any thing or quality was men- 
tioned which purported to be that " One, without 
a second." 

There is, to be sure, a long chain of existences 
extending down to the lowest physical forms, for 
the Neo-Platonic system is extremely elaborate, 
and finds room for nearly every doctrine that pre- 
ceded it in Greek philosophy. It is essential to 
our purpose briefly to consider this descending 
series, in order to understand the great problem 
which beset the mystic in his pursuit of the First. 

In general the world, as Neo-Platonism con- 
ceives it, is a process of outgoing from Deity and a 
return to Deity. But the problem is to under- 
stand the first and last steps. It is usual to apply 



Plotinus and Spinoza 205 

the term ' ' emanation ' ' to this type of world-pro- 
duction, but this word is misleading unless care- 
fully explained. 1 Creation is not due to design on 
the part of the First ; it does not result from an act 
of will, but is a sort of overflow or by-product, 
which adds nothing to the First and takes nothing 
from it. Plurality, changeability, and the rest, 
belong only to the creative products, not to the 
First. Creation is a kind of universal necessity of 
the fulness of being, and results simply because 
it is possible. In a sense, also, it is a "fall," as we 
shall presently see. 

The first product of this ultimate One is vots 
(Thought), which is not discursive reasoning but 
intuitive, timeless, beholding all things in one mo- 
ment. Thought is itself a unity, but is the ground 
of all difference, and thus contains plurality within 
itself. 2 It possesses five categories, namely, being, 
movement, fixity, identity, and difference. This 
intelligible world is also the home of the super- 
sensuous Ideas (adapted from Plato), the operat- 
ive powers, spirits and angels. Here, too, Thought 
creates soul, which contains the archetypal Ideas, 
and is still timeless, though on the confines of the 
temporal world. That is to say, the world-soul is 
outside of the corporeal sphere, but gives rise to 

1 For an interpretation of this term see The Neo-Platomsts, 
by Thos. Whitaker. London, 1901. 

2 See Benn, The Greek Philosophers, vol. ii., p. 302 et seq. 



206 Man and the Divine Order 

matter according to the creative archetypes, and 
thus, since spirit becomes matter, the dualism of 
spirit and matter is overcome. The cosmic soul 
also gives rise to the lesser or partial souls, such as 
our own. After these derivative or particular 
souls comes the phenomenal world, and so on 
down to the lowest forms of matter, which are 
dark and empty, far from the light of spirit, so far 
degraded as to be utterly foreign to the First. 
For, although the world results from the fall of 
the soul, which is a product of Thought, while 
Thought is itself a product of the First, it is im- 
possible to reason back from the world to the First, 
nor can the world be logically deduced from that 
One. Thought is only a product of the First, 
not an attribute, a designing activity, or will; 
and Thought is still a unity. But the phenomenal 
world is the domain of division, change, natural 
necessity, space, and time. It is without any true 
reality, a sort of shadow of being, which practic- 
ally amounts to non-being. That is, the soul, as 
light, was under a kind of compulsion to become 
darkness, spirit must become matter; but matter 
is so alien to the light that it is the source of evil, 
hollow and empty; and there is no way back to 
being. In other words, the world is a sort of 
concession to the finite. It is impossible to learn 
what reality is by studying phenomena, or even 
the causes of phenomena. "All investigation of 



Plotinus and Spinoza 207 

nature was here annulled," says Windelband, 1 
" but the door to all forms of faith and superstition 
was opened." 

Thus the Neo-Platonic system creates a greater 
difficulty than it sought to overcome. The ult- 
imate Being has been so far removed from the 
world, even from Thought, that there is no describ- 
able connection which is not immediately quali- 
fied, since the First is somehow one, while all this 
long series of descents from Thought to the souls of 
men, and from the human down into the dark 
abysses of matter, is the sphere of diversity. The 
series of descents is developed in minute detail. 
For example, the essence of man is said to consist 
in his higher nature. But there is also a lower 
soul, so that the passions reside partly in the 
lower soul, partly in the body, and are merely per- 
ceived by the higher soul. The will is free, but 
evil is involuntary, and is due to the soul's com- 
bination with matter, its imprisonment in the 
flesh. Thus fettered, the soul, although immortal, 
and in a sense unmixed with the body, which it 
uses as an instrument, is condemned to the hard- 
ships of migration and retribution, and longs to be 
set free. Happiness consists in the perfect life of 
thought, independent of external circumstances; 
and liberation comes at last through purification, 
victory over the passions, and asceticism. Yet 

1 History of Ancient Philosophy, p. 373, English translation. 



208 Man and the Divine Order 

here, again, we are still far from the ultimate goal. 1 
For how is the soul to pass from this lower realm 
of struggle and separateness to the eternal bliss of 
oneness with Deity? To answer this question we 
must try to follow Neo-Platonism to its greatest 
height. 

Here is a very explicit passage from Plotinus 
which clearly suggests the great problem of his 
system and sums up much that I have said : 

For the One whose nature it is to generate all 
things cannot be any of those things itself. There- 
fore it is neither substance nor quality nor reason nor 
soul, neither moving nor rest ; not in place, not in time 
but unique in its kind, or rather kindless, being before 
all kind, before motion, and before rest, for these 
belong to being, are that to which its multiplicity is 
due. Why, then, if it does not move is it not at rest? 
Because while one or both of these must be attributed 
to being, the very act of attribution involves a dis- 
tinction between subject and predicate, which is im- 
possible in the case of that which is absolutely simple. 2 

If the One cannot properly be an object of 
knowledge, but must be apprehended by some- 
thing higher, what is the resource? To attain a 
living realisation, find, not the cause of existence 
but existence itself, the primordial One which is 

1 See Windelband, History of Ancient Philosophy, p. 374. 

2 Enn., VI., ix., 3; quoted by Benn, Greek Philosophers, 
vol. ii., p. 311. 



Plotinus and Spinoza 209 

everywhere and nowhere. Philo x described this 
highest state of apprehension as a passive, recep- 
tive condition of contemplation, where all self- 
activity is transcended and reason is silent ; where 
there is a feeling of unity, where there is naught to 
desire. This state is a gift of Deity, not a con- 
dition which we may attain by any describable 
activity of our own. Nor can we define God even 
after thus obtaining a vision of His glorious es- 
sence. For God is more perfect than perfection 
itself; no name can stand for the divine majesty; 
we only know that God is, not what He is. 

Plotinus follows Philo in this description. All 
thought is said to be inferior to this ecstasy, since 
thought implies desire, whereas the ecstasy is rest 
in God. This exalted state is a kind of rapture, 
accompanied by a sense of singleness, a feeling of 
unity with the ground of the total universe, a 
sinking into the All-one, a purification where all 
distinctions are lost, where there is no longer indi- 
viduality, but where one's being is filled with di- 
vine light. The state is not the ground of any 
inference, it is not a process of knowledge but is 
an internal quietude, and on the human side a 
state of waiting for the divinity to appear. But we 
are warned that even this description is entirely 
inadequate. The experience is incommunicable- 

1 See Windelband, History of Philosophy, p. 227, second 
American edition. 



210 Man and the Divine Order 

Although it is not to be known in terms of 
thought, it may be known from itself, by having 
it. The way to know God is to be God. 

The noticeable characteristic of this theory is 
the wide gap which separates the First alike from 
the worlds of thought and of nature. From pure 
Thought downwards there is, as we have seen, a 
continuous series. The Logos doctrine of Philo, 
with the angels, archetypes, and creative powers, 
served to mediate between the theories of spirit 
and matter ; and by purification the soul could re- 
ascend to the plane of Thought. Thus the rational 
system was complete below the level of Thought. 
But beyond that level no mortal could go, nor was 
it possible to return from the beatific height and 
establish any logical connection with pure Thought 
and the orders of being below it. The utmost that 
one could do was to ascend to the domain of 
Thought and there await the divine blessing. Hav- 
ing been caught up in ecstasy, the soul was only 
able on its return to utter the disappointing, 
negative statements which we have already re- 
corded. One would suppose nothing to be sim- 
pler than to infer that the First is the logical 
ground of Thought and its differentia, the world 
and its variety. For, since the First produced 
Thought, and Thought gave rise to all else, does 
it not follow that the First is an infinitely rich 
ground of all differences, ought we not to lift rea- 



Plotinus and Spinoza 211 

son to the highest sphere and reform the utterly 
negative account of the First? Is it not then 
rationally possible to account for the ecstasy as a 
sort of vision, in one moment, of that which the 
intellect may thereafter proceed to unfold ? Is it 
not an illusion to say that the human soul ' ' fell 
and that it ' ' becomes ' ' God ? Is it not irrational 
to declare that the cosmos is a mere ' ' overflow ' ' 
without definite connection with the constitution 
of the First ? Why assert that the First is utterly 
unknowable, when we know so much about it that 
we can say precisely what it is not ? 

This is what common sense would say ; not so 
Plotinus. He offers every aid to the soul to attain 
liberation, including the enjoyment of beauty, 
usually withheld from ascetic devotees. But ra- 
tional thought is hopelessly subordinate. It does 
not accord with the spirit of that age to look for 
an intellectual approach to the highest reality, 
and the intellect is deemed wholly incapable of 
describing the noblest state of the soul. When, 
therefore, Plotinus had his visions he seems to 
have regarded them as miracles. Zeller holds z 
that Plotinus was undoubtedly personally ac- 
quainted with the ecstatic condition, and it is said 
that four times during his earthly career Plotinus 
was caught up into this superconscious condition. 
Without doubt these first-hand experiences were 

1 Greek Philosophy, p. 339, English translation. 



212 Man and the Divine Order 

the primary basis of the philosophising of Plo- 
tinus. 1 The form he chose to clothe his thought 
in was his peculiar synthesis of the doctrines of 
Plato, Aristotle, and other philosophers, tempered 
by the spirit of his age, and perhaps confirmed by 
traditions from the East. But it is clear that his 
whole system is affected by the prejudicial ideas 
which he held concerning the intellect. Plato's 
mythical dialogue, the Tim<zus, seems to have 
been a leading source of his inspiration. One 
misses that profound and sanely rational theory 
of organisation which makes Plato's Philebus so 
important. 

Let us turn, now, from this negative conclusion 
to the doctrine of another great seer who dwelt 
with God, and note how his conclusions contrast 
with those of Plotinus, namely, Spinoza, frequently 
spoken of as the "God-intoxicated man." Cast 
out of the synagogue on account of his heretical 
views, condemned in the most extravagant terms 
as an atheist and worse, this heroic lover of truth 
will always be one of the greatest figures in the 
history of thought. It would be impossible in 
brief space to do justice either to his life or to his 
philosophy. For our present purposes the life of 
Spinoza is interesting on account of its central in- 
terests. Spurned and cast out by the world, 

1 See Inge's searching criticism of Plotinus and his trances, 
Christian Mysticism, pp. 96-99. 



Plotinus and Spinoza 213 

Spinoza felt an even greater necessity to find a 
road to peace and eternal truth than did the 
Alexandrian mystics of old. He tells us in his 
essay On the Improvement of the Understanding 
that he tried some of the usual methods of at- 
taining satisfaction but found them all fruitless. 
What he longed for was somewhat which should 
give him continuous, supreme, and unending hap- 
piness, an eternal, abiding object of love. It be- 
came clear that nothing finite, limited, could give 
this satisfaction. For nothing in its own nature 
may rightfully be called either perfect or imper- 
fect ; only by discovering fixed laws, the eternal 
order to which all things are related, may one find 
peace. That is, one must discover the relation 
existing between one's self and the whole of 
nature, and acquire a character which shall give 
stability. That Spinoza actually found the peace 
for which he sought must be evident to every 
reader of the Ethics, however one may differ from 
some of its conclusions. 

Spinoza does not indulge in the usual language 
of the mystic, and there is nothing to indicate that 
he had separately marked experiences, such as the 
four ecstasies of Plotinus. Yet, if to be a mystic 
means to dwell consciously with God, to be filled 
with the divine presence, probably no seer ever 
dwelt on the heights more steadily than the lonely 
lens-maker and philosopher of Amsterdam. There 



214 Man and the Divine Order 

was perhaps even more reason for the employment 
of mystical terms than in the case of the Neo- 
Platonists. But let us note how different is the 
account which Spinoza gave of the great vision. 
Whether or not Spinoza ascended to the heights 
and descended, at any rate he arrived at precisely 
the opposite conclusion from that of Plotinus. 
The subtitle of Spinoza's great work, the Ethics, is 
" Ordina Geometrica Demonstrata." To him, the 
whole subject of God's nature and its relationships, 
and the emotional states of man, is as clear a field 
of investigation as that of mathematics. 

Spinoza begins by defining Substance, its attri- 
butes and modes. He then proceeds by a series 
of axioms, propositions, and proofs to develop in 
rigidly logical order his conception of God, as ab- 
solutely infinite and perfect Substance ; to show 
the relation of God to nature, and explain the 
relationships of mind and body, mind and the 
emotions, man and God. The entire undertaking 
is of the utmost possible exactness. It is one of 
the most heroic attempts in any language to put 
that which is great and holy and universal into 
the form of a precise system. Spinoza starts with 
the demonstrated existence of God, conceived as 
possessing a perfectly definable nature, that is, so 
far as known to us through the two attributes of 
thought and extension ; then goes on to deduce the 
entire world-order as necessarily following from 



Plotinus and Spinoza 215 

God's infinite perfection. As in the Neo-Platonic 
system, creation is not due to an assignable design, 
but results because it is possible. Yet the reason 
that no creative plan is assignable to God is that 
such an idea would be reading our petty notions 
into the divine mind. Possessed of an infinite 
number of attributes, God has given existence to 
the world because it was His nature to express 
Himself in an infinite number of ways. All things 
have been brought into being in the highest per- 
fection, since they came from a wholly perfect 
source, and they could not have come forth in any 
other way. 1 Everything is precisely what it is 
because of the perfect essence of God. Likewise, 
everything in the realms of thought and extension 
follows from strict necessity, and all is immediately 
referable to the nature of God. To study the 
human mind is to find the pathway to the highest 
blessedness, since one may only know that mind 
in deepest truth as part of the being of God. 2 

Thus in life it is before all things useful to perfect 
the understanding, or reason, as far as we can, and 
in this alone man's highest happiness or blessedness 
consists; indeed, blessedness is nothing else but the 
contentment of spirit which arises from the intuitive 
knowledge of God; now to perfect the understand- 
ing is nothing else but to understand God, God's 

1 Ethics, Part I., xxxiii., note 2. 

2 See Ethics, Part II., preface. 



216 Man and the Divine Order 

attributes, and the actions which follow from the 
necessity of His nature. 1 

Nature is not degraded to the category of ap- 
pearance; the visible world of nature is God in 
passive form. Every fact in nature is part of a 
logical sequence whose exact basis is knowable in 
the divine essence. Not only is thought elevated 
to the position of a divine attribute, but, in sharp 
contrast to the Neo-Platonic doctrine, the rational 
power in man is expressly accredited with those 
powers which Plotinus denies to it. Spinoza has 
place for several kinds of knowledge, beginning 
with that which arises by hearsay, through per- 
ception, the imagination, etc. But it is the nature 
of reason to proceed from an " adequate idea of the 
absolute essence of certain attributes of God to the 
adequate knowledge of the essence of things." 2 
That is, reason is able to perceive things ''under 
the form of eternity," without any relation to 
time, namely, as they really and necessarily are. 

The more our rational knowledge increases the 
more we know about the real nature of God, and 
the more we partake of the divine nature. Thus 
the spirit becomes tranquil, the storms and con- 
flicts of passion cease. For knowledge is power, 
and the better we understand our emotions and 

1 Ethics, Part IV., Appendix iv. The quotations are from 
Elwes's translation, Bohn Library. 

2 Ibid., Part II., xi., note 2. 



Plotinus and Spinoza 217 

other mental states the more control we have over 
them. The spirit of joy fills the soul as this true 
knowledge advances, man becomes free, is in- 
spired by good-will to all his fellows, lifted above 
all carping and deceit, more and more absorbed in 
the love of God. " He who clearly and distinctly 
understands himself and his emotions loves God 
. . . this love towards God must hold the 
chief place in the mind." J 

This love towards God is eternal, it is the highest 
attainment of man. Spinoza expressly terms it 
"the intellectual love of God," that is, he carries 
the idea of intellect to the very highest pinnacle of 
beatitude; man's noblest state is rational through 
and through. Yet, this highest state is as surely, 
as truly, a participation in God. Here is what 
Spinoza says of it : 

The intellectual love of God is that very love 
whereby God loves Himself, not in so far as He is 
infinite, but in so far as He can be explained through 
the essence of the human mind regarded under the 
form of eternity; in other words, the intellectual love 
of the mind towards God is part of the infinite love 
wherewith God loves Himself. . . . From what 
has been said we clearly understand wherein our sal- 
vation,- or blessedness, or freedom consists, namely, in 
the constant and eternal love towards God, or in 
God's love towards men. 2 

1 Ethics, Part V., xv. 

2 Ibid., Part V., xxxvi., Prop, and note. 



218 Man and the Divine Order 

That is, Spinoza describes the highest state so 
that he almost loses sight of the human attitude 
altogether. Yet in a measure he preserves it, and 
explicitly shows what he means by his terms, the 
relationship of man's vision to the glory and per- 
fection of God. ' ' The essence of our mind consists 
solely in knowledge, whereof the beginning and the 
foundation is God, it becomes clear to us in what 
manner and way our mind . . . constantly 
depends on God." * Elsewhere Spinoza explains 
that by the term " knowledge, " as here used, he 
means intuitive knowledge. That is, it is im- 
mediate insight into the being of God and the 
nature of man, yet it is intuitive in a rational 
sense, and may be rationally unfolded. This part 
of the mind is eternal and is therefore able to sur- 
vive all change. For, as a mode of thinking, it is 
part of the infinite and eternal intellect of God, 
part of the life of virtue, the religion of blessed- 
ness, the divinest joy. Thus Spinoza makes the 
transition to that which is ordinarily denominated 
"spiritual." Thus he suggests, as language has 
seldom suggested, what must have been the peace 
and contentment of his soul. 

The reason for choosing the geometrical method 
of demonstration is found in the age in which 
Spinoza lived. It was a time of great mathemati- 
cal discoveries, the age of mechanical philosophy. 
1 Ethics, Part V., xxxvi., note. 



Plotinus and Spinoza 219 

By putting his thought in geometrical form Spi- 
noza was simply carrying out his philosophical 
inheritance. That this form has serious defects is 
at once apparent, for it gives a severe, austere tone 
to the Ethics which is likely to be forbidding to 
those who are in search of spiritual things. The 
reader finds it necessary to live with Spinoza in his 
rigidly precise geometrical world till the mind be- 
comes accustomed to the rigidity and begins to 
realise the depth of Spinoza's thought. One dis- 
covers, in due course, that the forbidding form 
of the Ethics is in a sense, secondary. As the ar- 
gument draws to a close, Spinoza seems at times 
to forget his own allegiance to strict logic and per- 
mits the reader to obtain glimpses of the austere 
reasoner lost in contemplation. These occasional 
leaps forward over the rough places of the more 
toilsome pathway suggest that for Spinoza the un- 
clouded vision, the real presence, was the prime 
essential. He fully intends to make good every 
step in his progress to the supernal heights. On 
the whole, his undertaking is strikingly successful. 
Were he able to profit by the verdicts of time he 
would doubtless make his logical structure still 
stronger ; he would have no reason to confess that 
he had failed. Yet one cannot help noting these 
suggestions of yet greater depth of truth. It is 
because Spinoza permits himself to pass from the 
human point of view to the divine, and show us 



2 2o Man and the Divine Order 

God in the act of loving man, where a moment 
before it was man loving God, that one is the more 
convinced of the rational method. For Spinoza 
does not even for a moment permit himself to be 
disloyal to reason, to forget that this very love is 
at the same time the essence of the infinite intel- 
lect, the rational constitution of God. 

Thus we find in Spinoza much that is denied to 
us by Plotinus. We see that one is perfectly 
justified in drawing inferences from the beatific 
vision, in supplying through reason all that the 
momentary insight beholds " under the form of 
eternity." As matter of fact, Plotinus does draw 
inferences, as all mystics must the moment they 
use human speech. But Plotinus seems to be 
unaware of the positive value of his own inferences. 
There are certain striking resemblances between 
his " First" and Spinoza's " Substance," which 
show that in both systems the main effort is to 
describe the relation of all things to the divine 
essence. In each case ultimate Being is unique, 
self - sufficient, absolute, infinitely perfect. In 
each case creation is a necessary consequence of 
this perfection, causation is immanent, and final 
causes are lacking. The system which is deduced 
in Spinoza's case is far more simple than Neo- 
Platonism. Plotinus believes in a wealth of in- 
termediaries which have no place in the Ethics of 
Spinoza, and the psychology of the latter is differ- 



Plotinus and Spinoza 221 

ent. But there are so many points of resemblance 
that Plotinus's system, corrected where it is most 
in error, might become the philosophy of Spinoza. 
That is, Plotinus sunders the finite from the in- 
finite, degrades nature, because he does not see 
that by very definition there can be no separation 
between the First and all that necessarily over- 
flows from it. 

The First of Plotinus corresponds to the in- 
finitely perfect Substance of Spinoza in so far as 
Spinoza is unable to tell us what are the other 
attributes of God besides the two we know. The 
attributes of thought and extension in Spinoza's 
system are represented by Thought and its pro- 
ducts in Neo-Platonism, although Thought and 
Nature are erroneously sundered from the First. 
In both systems it is eternal intuition which re- 
veals the infinite background. In both systems 
the life of purification from and control of the 
emotions leads the way to the perfect life of 
thought. Spinoza does not forget that the love 
of God is intellectual, hence he makes good his 
account of the divine beatitude. Plotinus has all 
the essentials wherewith to bridge over the 
chasm to the infinite but he has lost the clue 
to their unification. Each gives back his own 
temperament coloured by the thought of his age, 
and each confesses that for him the vision, the 
experience, the love, was itself more real than 



222 Man and the Divine Order 

the faulty report which the most explicit language 
could convey. 

The question whether either Plotinus or Spinoza 
offered a satisfactory explanation of concrete hu- 
man life is of course another matter. Our pre- 
sent interest is limited to the evidences of a higher 
or eternal order and the striking diversities of 
method which our two seers display. It is once 
more made clear that there is a reality in mystic 
intuition to which we must accord a high place. 
But it is no less clear that the negations of mysti- 
cism are entirely unnecessary. There is nothing 
in the intuition of the eternal that cannot be 
rationally unified. If Spinoza fails in part, Plato 
and Emerson point the way to success. No study 
of the divine order is more instructive than the 
one which thus reveals the harmony underlying 
widely contrasted systems of thought. 



CHAPTER X 

THE OPTIMISM OF LEIBNIZ 

LEIBNIZ is the typical harmoniser and opti- 
mist. There were optimists before his time, 
and Leibniz was himself greatly indebted to 
Plato. In England, Shaftesbury was independ- 
ently developing a similar doctrine at the same 
time, 1 and it is probable that the popular expos- 
ition of optimism, Pope's Essay on Man, was 
more directly derived from Shaftesbury than from 
the more thoroughly wrought theory of Leibniz. 
But it was Leibniz who reaped the full benefits of 
the age of mechanical philosophy and developed 
optimism into a complete system. Shaftesbury 
was not piimarily interested in the development of 
a metaphysical system, and Pope was no philo- 
sopher. The Essay on Man is commonly supposed 
to be purely optimistic, but close examination 
shows that it contains pessimistic notions derived 
from the satirical author of The Fable of the Bees, 
Mandeville, who in part anticipated the pessimism 

1 Shaftesbury's Moralists was published in 1709; the Theo- 
dicee of Leibniz was published in 1710. 

223 



224 Man and the Divine Order 

of Schopenhauer. It is to Leibniz that we must 
turn for the source of many popular optimisms. 
To study his philosophy is, in fact, not only to see 
optimism at the best advantage, but to carry the 
theory as far as it can be carried. The study is of 
fundamental significance for students of the vari- 
ous conceptions of the divine order. 

Leibniz was rather more a man of the world than 
most of the seers who have had the great insight 
into the divine beauty. He was a man of varied 
interests, not only a philosopher but a statesman, 
scientific scholar, theologian, historian, and the 
like. He was educated for the law, and held 
numerous positions, finally that of librarian at 
Hanover. He travelled extensively and knew 
many of the most famous men of his time, among 
them Spinoza. From earliest boyhood he was not 
only a wide reader but a thorough student. His 
philosophy was, therefore, no mere eclecticism or 
aesthetic combination of pleasing elements; it 
was a closely thought-out system, based on pre- 
cise logical principles, the work of a great mind. 
Leibniz was great in all the subjects to which he 
devoted attention, and has long been famous as a 
mathematical genius and discoverer as well as a 
philosopher. Indeed, he was one of the few most 
remarkable intellectual men of all time, and author 
of an almost incredible number of treatises on his- 
tory, politics, mathematics, and philosophy, some 



Optimism of Leibniz 225 

of which still lie in the library at Hanover in manu- 
script form, awaiting the time when some one 
shall complete the task of translating and editing 
his works. His was a universal mind, not content 
with any one pursuit, or any single point of view. 
He was so deeply interested in his scholarly pur- 
suits that he would sometimes sit for several days 
at a time in his chair, and have his food brought to 
him at favourable intervals. 

Born in Leipzig, in 1646, the son of a professor 
of philosophy, Leibniz so early evinced fondness 
for learned books that at the age of six or seven his 
father's library was thrown open to him, and by 
the time he was fourteen he had sketched out his 
system of philosophy. He found good in all the 
books he read, and he read not to confute but to 
learn. His biographer tells us that "he spoke 
well of everybody, and made the best of every- 
thing." . He enjoyed the society of men of all 
types, and believed he could learn even from the 
least enlightened. Yet he read not only to master, 
but if possible to add something to, every science 
he studied. He was equally at home in several 
languages, and wrote learned works in Latin, 
French, and German. His great desire seems to 
have, been to cultivate all sides of his nature, to 
be an all-round great man. His own life was thus 
typical of his philosophy. 

It is seldom that the love of exact method and of 



226 Man and the Divine Order 

mathematics is found in combination with appre- 
ciation of that which is spiritual and also united 
with accurate knowledge of the history of philo- 
sophy. All this was united in Leibniz with a pro- 
found love of beauty, order. Leibniz possessed a 
keen eye for the infinitely slight differences by 
which things are distinguished and by which 
they shade into one another. This penetrative in- 
sight revealed to him the beautiful gradations by 
which the harmony of the universe is attained. 
His philosophy is thus the work of an artist who 
has the finest insight into details. One of his 
great principles is continuity. He cannot bear the 
thought of rough edges and gaps in things. Every- 
thing must harmonise imperceptibly with its 
neighbours. " Nature never makes leaps." There 
are no voids or bare spots. From the very be- 
ginnings of perception and motion up to the high- 
est domain of religion, there is everywhere gradual 
transition. Life is a continuous whole, the uni- 
verse is an organism, and only by understanding 
the minute details can one appreciate the harmony 
of the great totality. 

The particular doctrines which Leibniz sought 
to harmonise were the opposed conceptions of 
substance maintained by the Greek Atomists, on 
the one hand, and by Spinoza, on the other. He 
also sought to overcome the dualism between 
mind and matter which was inculcated by Des- 



Optimism of Leibniz 227 

cartes, as well as to find a way of uniting the 
religious interests and the mechanical philosophy 
of his time. Let us consider these theories for a 
moment, that we may understand how Leibniz 
approached his problem. 

The objection to atomism is that if absolutely 
hard, indivisible units of matter exist there can be 
no real unity, no continuity in the world. Ac- 
cording to this hypothesis the world is merely a 
collection of little particles endlessly and blindly 
combining in new arrangements. On the other 
hand, "Substance," as conceived by Spinoza, is a 
unit in such a strict sense of the word that there 
can be no parts. Spinoza held that Substance, 
absolutely perfect and infinite, is all that exists. 
Substance is known to man only through two of 
its attributes, thought and extension. This world 
which you and I behold is actually God Himself, 
that is, as revealed by the attribute of extension; 
what we call mind is God known as thought. 
Creation is not the result of choice or divine fiat, 
it does not exist for a particular end. What exists 
is here of necessity ; it follows from the nature of 
God, just as the characteristics of a geometrical 
figure follow from the exact nature of that figure. 
All that exists in the physical world is due to 
rigidly mathematical sequence in which each de- 
tail is the logical result of that which preceded it. 
Likewise, in the world of mind, all thoughts are 



228 Man and the Divine Order 

modes of God, exist under the attribute of thought, 
and are not to be regarded as in any way produced 
by the motions of matter or as causing changes in 
the material world. Only when we turn aside 
from this parallelism of mental and physical states 
to view things "under the form of eternity," is it 
possible for us to behold all things in unity. There 
are values in this way of thinking, notably the 
conception of the intellectual love of God. But 
we are now considering the doctrine as it ap- 
peared to Leibniz. Absolute unity could never 
satisfy a mind like Leibniz, with his high regard 
for individuality. 

Nor was the dualism of Descartes acceptable. 
Descartes started, as everybody knows who has 
read modern philosophy, with the fact of self- 
consciousness, a fact which is the more firmly es- 
tablished the more persistently we try to doubt it. 
For even to doubt is to be conscious, to know 
that in doubting, I, the doubter, exist. From 
the fact of self -consciousness Descartes turned to 
the proof of God's existence and the study of the 
world of nature. Nature Descartes described as a 
mechanical system, while the animal body he re- 
garded as an automaton. Hence mind and body 
were for him sharply contrasted. 

To overcome these sharp contrasts and at the 
same time develop a satisfactory theory of sub- 
stance, Leibniz proposed his famous theory of 



Optimism of Leibniz 229 

Monads. The Monads were described as simple 
substances, without parts, extensionless, formless, 
indestructible by natural means, each different 
from every other and each in constant activity. 
Out of these simple elements all things are com- 
posed. The Monads should not be thought of as 
physical elements. They are not hard like the 
atoms, and cast about at random. It would be 
nearer the truth to compare them to conscious 
elements, to living cells endowed with mind. For, 
as we have seen, Leibniz is a great believer in 
continuity. According to his theory of nature 
mind is not introduced at some point in evolution, 
but is present all along the line of development. 
Even in the lowest forms of life perception exists. 
The lowest forms of life are not pre-conscious but 
un-conscious. From this unconscious state up to 
the highest forms of mental life there is gradual 
transition. The sleeping unconscious gradually 
becomes the conscious, and finally leads to the 
self-conscious. 

Movement and life are due to mental activity 
which originates from within. The elements are 
not cast about by chance, but each possesses a 
principle of spontaneous activity, so that there is 
nothing in nature which is sundered from life and 
mind. Each physical form has its dominating 
Monad, its principle of life. Thus the real nature 
of a thing, even of a rock, is only found when we 



230 Man and the Divine Order 

penetrate in thought to its mental constitution. 
Hence mind and matter are nowhere sundered. 
There is continuity throughout the cosmos. The 
soul of man is a higher Monad, a spiritual being, 
a distinct individual. Just as in nature no two 
things are alike, so in the inner world soul differs 
from soul. That is, the Monads are not describ- 
able in quantitative terms ; they differ in quality. 
Each soul is therefore unique. We should think 
of one another not as substances, but as indi- 
viduals. You and I mirror the universe in our 
private way. Each of us has a little world of his 
own wherein the great universe is reproduced in 
individual fashion. 

It is the knowledge of necessary and eternal truths 
that distinguishes us from the mere animals and gives 
us Reason and the sciences, raising us to the know- 
ledge of ourselves and of God. And it is this in us 
that is called the rational soul or mind. 1 

Thus Leibniz conducts his readers, step by step, 
into the precincts of the soul, where the purpose of 
life is seen. We have left the material universe of 
atomism, yet we have found other and nobler ele- 
ments which take the place of atoms. We have 
preserved the conception of substance, but we 
have found room for real parts, real finite beings. 
For our souls are not in reality one great being. 
1 The Monadology, \ 29, Latta's translation. 



Optimism of Leibniz 231 

We really exist as beings of inherent worth. And 
by following Leibniz thus far we have entered the 
inner world to find ourselves on the confines of 
modern idealism. Real life can only be known in 
terms of mind. Within your consciousness and 
mine the life of the great organism is revealed; 
you see it in your inner revelation : I represent it 
according to my peculiar constitution. Yet each 
of us belongs to the whole. There could be no real 
whole without real parts. But with such parts an 
infinitely glorious system is possible. 

Having mounted thus far, we turn to the great 
thought of organism. To understand the meaning 
and beauty of our life, we must turn our thought 
upward to the infinite perfection of God. The 
richness, the beauty and wisdom of God are such 
that He needs an infinite number of beings to re- 
veal His glory. Only when the perfection of things 
is represented from all possible points of view can 
the divine beauty be made known. Hence the 
wonders and glories of the visible universe, hence 
the continuity of life from lowest to highest ; and 
hence, above all, the life of man with its great 
variety. All things and beings belong to one vast 
system wherein all perfection is made manifest. 
In it all there is no break, no discord not essential 
to the harmony of the whole. 

Thus the basis of optimism is the conception of 
God as perfect, all-wise, happy, infinitely good, 



232 Man and the Divine Order 

and beautiful. In His omniscience, God foresaw 
all possibilities, all kinds of worlds that could exist. 

As in the Ideas of God there is an infinite number 
of possible universes, and as only one of them can be 
actual, there must be a sufficient reason for the choice 
of God, which leads Him to decide upon one rather 
than another. And this reason can only be found in 
the fitness, or the degrees of perfection, that these 
worlds possess, since each possible thing has the 
right to aspire to existence in proportion to the 
amount of perfection it contains in germ. 1 

Endowed with foresight of all these possibilities 
God chose the best world-order. Hence our uni- 
verse could not be better than it is. It is not the 
only possible world, but the best system that could 
exist consistently with the greatest amount of 
happiness, harmony, and goodness. It is not ab- 
solutely perfect, for such perfection belongs to 
God alone, and if it were perfect it would be in- 
distinguishable from God. But it is the best of 
possible worlds, the nearest perfect that a world 
could be, as the expression of God. Unlike the 
mystics, Leibniz does not identify the world with 
God. Pope's line would not then apply to this 
account of things, namely, 

Whose body nature is, and God the soul. 

1 The Monadology, \\ 53, 54. 



Optimism of Leibniz 233 

It is one of the merits of Leibniz that he was 
able to avoid mystical confusions. The world, for 
him, is the detailed revelation of the perfection of 
God. The Monads, or souls, are real individuals, 
not mere parts of a monotonous whole. Each 
possesses and expresses, as well as mirrors, the 
world in its own way. 1 Each is a little world of 
harmony in itself, the most harmonious it could 
be and yet be its particular self. Thus the only 
imperfection in the whole is due to the necessary 
limitation by which things and beings exist as in- 
dividual. What is called ' ' evil ' ' is simply a want, 
a defect due to the fact that the individual is 
limited to a particular type of life, and a unique 
phase of that type. The imperfections of the 
limited being thus point forward to God, the 
Monad of monads, in whom all limitations are 
overcome, in which all is really perfect that is only 
potentially perfect in the finite individuals. 

If, now, we ask how it can be that all things 
work out together in one harmonious whole, the an- 
swer is that God, in choosing the best of possible 
worlds, also harmoniously established every detail 
of that which ever was to exist. The world-plan 
is complete in every respect, in minutest detail. 
The Creator who foresaw was perfectly able to 
provide. All His activities are characterised by 
the fitness of things. He is eternally active, He is 

1 The Monadology, \\ 55-60. 



234 Man and the Divine Order 

pure activity, and creation is thus a continuous 
process. The Monads are flashings, as it were, of 
the celestial fire; they are sent forth when they 
are needed to complete the harmony. You and I 
went forth from the divine life in the fulness of 
time. Hence our lives are harmonious with the 
lives of all men ; the universe is friendly, is congru- 
ous with you and with me. 

The divine nature is thus the system of all the 
Monads, the sufficient reason for the existence of 
this great harmony. To know the sufficient rea- 
son is to know the ultimate cause, the ground, or 
plan. It is not adequate knowledge of causation to 
know the efficient causes of things: for example, 
the mechanical connection of any particular series 
of events in nature, such as the phenomena of 
vegetal growth. We must turn to the mental 
world to find final causes. 1 In man's body effi- 
cient causes only are seen, that is, forces acting on 
forces. Really to understand the meaning and 
place of the body we must turn to the soul, where 
is written the purpose, the ideal, or end which the 
body subserves. But to understand the purpose 
exemplified in the soul we should turn once more 
to God, in whose perfect world-plan the ultimate 
purpose is seen. 

The principle of pre-established harmony is the 
complement of the law of sufficient reason. Thus 
1 The Monadology, § 79. 



Optimism of Leibniz 235 

Leibniz overcame the dualism by which Descartes 
separated the soul and the body by declaring that 
the side-by-side correspondence of soul and body is 
due to the harmony prearranged between them. 1 
When motion takes place in the body there is 
mental activity in the Monad in concord with it. 
Likewise between soul and soul there is complete 
harmony, so that you in your little world and I 
in mine represent or mirror the same great system 
of things ; what you think and feel finds its fitness 
in what I think and feel. 

We have no unrelated thoughts or feelings. 
When I, expressing the spontaneity with which I 
am endowed, make choice of an ideal, that ideal 
is congruous with the ultimate order of things ; it 
finds its sufficient reason in the universal harmony. 
Therefore, I know that my ideal is sure to be real- 
ised, that it will not conflict either with your choice 
or with the will of God. The nature of the world- 
order being such as it is, it follows that things 
must develop as they do. Yet there is abundant 
room for individuality, since the plan of things in- 
cludes the greatest variety consistent with har- 
mony in the system as a whole. 

The whole is in the highest sense a moral order. 

Whence it is easy to conclude that the totality of 
all spirits must compose the City of God, that is to 

1 Principles of Nature and of Grace, § 3. 



236 Man and the Divine Order 

say, the most perfect State that is possible, under the 
most perfect of Monarchs. This City of God, this 
truly universal monarchy, is a moral world in the 
natural world, and is the most exalted and most 
divine among the works of God ; and it is in that that 
the glory of God really consists, for He would have no 
glory were not His goodness known and admired by 
spirits. . . . If we could sufficiently understand 
the order of the universe, we should find that it ex- 
ceeds all the desires of the wisest men, and that it 
is impossible to make it better than it is, not only 
as a whole and in general, but also for ourselves in 
particular. 1 

The moral order is as perfect in the same minute 
detail as the order of nature, and the harmony of 
the lower levels of life leads to the nobler perfec- 
tion of the higher. 

God as Architect satisfies in all respects God as 
Lawgiver, and thus . . . sins bear their penalty 
with them, through the order of nature, and even 
in virtue of the mechanical structure of things; and 
similarly . . . noble actions will attain their 
rewards. . . . This it is which leads wise and 
virtuous people to devote their energies to everything 
which appears in harmony with the presumptive or 
antecedent will of God. 2 

In so far as man rises to the level of awareness of 
his presence in the eternal City of God, he shares in 

1 The Monadology, §§ 85, 86, 90. 

2 Ibid.,%% 89, 90. 



Optimism of Leibniz 237 

the happiness of all, in the happiness of God. Love 
towards God is a direct way of approach to this 
happiness. In so far as each man feels that love, is 
aware of that harmony, he desires to play his part 
in the universe in the way that is most fitting, that 
contributes most to the total harmony. 

Nothing is happier than God and nothing more 
beautiful or more worthy of happiness can be con- 
ceived. And since He possesses supreme power and 
wisdom, His happiness not only becomes a part of 
ours (if we are wise, that is, if we love Him), but even 
constitutes it. 1 

Thus it is only ignorance of what we truly are, and 
what our privilege in the universe is, that ever 
shuts us out from participation in this joy and 
service. If we really knew our true being we 
would never complain and never sin. We are in 
reality on the way to this City of God, even when 
confused by the darkness of ignorance. That very 
darkness is part of the harmony, but dimly made 
known. We are simply sleeping. In so far as we 
awaken, we come to consciousness ; and to come to 
consciousness is to know the way to harmony, to 
learn that even now we are essential to the har- 
mony of the whole. 

Thus there is nothing lost in such a universe. 
All things are parts of the perfect whole, each is 

1 On The Notions of Right and Justice. 



238 Man and the Divine Order 

adapted to all and all is adapted to each : neither 
the whole nor the part is slighted. The world 
as conceived by Leibniz is large and roomy. No 
one is shut out, everybody is needed, and justice 
is having its perfect work. Leibniz is optimistic 
through and through, there are no reservations, 
there is no hostile power, nothing to defeat the 
perfect unfolding of the plan. Nor are there any 
mysteries. Man of course is man, and not God. 
Yet, in the life of the part the beauty of the whole 
is so made known that each has the clue to per- 
fection. "All that is possible has claim to ex- 
istence in proportion to its perfection." If that 
which you prefer does not exist in your life, you 
may know that it is because something better is 
to take its place. That other mode of life was 
possible, but it was not in keeping with other 
things which were more congruous with the whole. 

Hence it is incumbent upon us, if we would 
know the harmony of things, share in the happi- 
ness and glory of God, to throw ourselves into 
unison with the life that is unfolding from within. 
Everything has been provided; it is for us to 
awaken and enjoy. The goal is before us all: let 
us bestir ourselves and strive for it, well knowing 
that there is no such word as fail. 

There are logical difficulties in the working out 
of this system, but these need not concern us here. 
The essential is to grasp the main idea, the concep- 



Optimism of Leibniz 239 

tion of harmony. In the first place, there is the 
thought of God, perfect, omniscient, good, and 
true. God is above all a God of order, hence He 
chose the world-plan which contained the highest 
possible degree of order. As an organism, the 
great universe therefore declares the orderly con- 
stitution of God. Hence the minutely adapted 
parts, the nice adjustments, the regularity of the 
stars in their courses and the rhythmical or mathe- 
matical sequence of things. The world of nature 
is like a great machine wherein no part is out of 
place or ill-made. Yet the mechanical order is 
only the lowest level in the universal organism. 
The comparison with a machine is inadequate. 
There is nothing dead or inert : the smallest parti- 
cles of matter are teeming with life. 1 Moreover, 
everything aspires, there are " little perceptions" 
which point upwards to the fulness of conscious 
life. The subconscious world leads up to the con- 
scious. In the soul of man there are final causes, 
moral and spiritual ends. Yet the City of God in 
which each soul dwells is not an isolated heaven, 
like the supernatural kingdom of Christian theo- 
logy; it is the moral order of the total universe 
and includes all men, not Christians alone. The 
moral order is a higher degree of the same har- 
monious system of nature. There is no wall or 
break between, but rather an increase of the divine 

1 The Monadology, §66. 



240 Man and the Divine Order 

glory, since the beauty of God is there most fully 
revealed : 

Besides the world or the aggregate of finite things 
there is a certain unity which is dominant, not only 
as the soul is dominant in me, or rather as the ego 
itself is dominant in my body, but also in a much 
higher sense. For the dominant unity of the uni- 
verse not only rules the world, but constructs or fash- 
ions it. It is higher than the world and, so to speak, 
extramundane, and is thus the ultimate reason of 
things. For the sufficient reason of existence cannot 
be found either in any particular thing or in the 
whole aggregate and series of things. . . . You 
may, indeed, suppose the world eternal; but as you 
suppose only a succession of states, in none of which 
do you find the sufficient reason, . . . it is evi- 
dent that the reason must be sought elsewhere. For 
in eternal things, even though there be no cause, there 
must be a reason which, for permanent things, is 
necessity itself or essence. . . . From this it is 
manifest that even by supposing the eternity of the 
world, we cannot escape the ultimate extramundane 
reason of things, that is to say, God. . . . The 
nature of the world being such as it is, it follows that 
things must happen in it just as they do. 1 

If we could know the full meaning of our life we 
should be God, in whom is perfect knowledge. 
Yet, though we cannot behold the perfect, we have 

1 On the Ultimate Origination of Things. 



Optimism of Leibniz 241 

the assurance that the imperfect in us is complete 
in God. In Him is perfect justice, for example, 
whereas human beings are still striving towards 
justice ; in Him are perfect love and wisdom, yet our 
lesser wisdom and love are not separated from Him 
except in degree. Every event in our lives points 
forward to its divine fulfilment ; and while we can- 
not know the details in advance we know in gen- 
eral that all things will find their realisation in 
harmonious fulfilment. There is kinship every- 
where, between nature and the "kingdom of 
grace," between man and the angels, the angels 
and the "best of Monarchs" in whose city all beings 
dwell. In that city not only does no good action 
fail to bring its due fulfilment, but every one is 
happy in proportion to his fulness of life. Even 
before the day of our fuller life arrives, the love of 
God enables us to enjoy a foretaste of our coming 
happiness. In this love our highest interest con- 
sists. This love gives perfect confidence in the 
goodness of things and in the wise government of 
their Author. 

Thus the soul enters into real tranquillity, not 
into an artificial or stoical composure, but into 
genuine satisfaction with the order and perfection 
of things, that is to say, unqualified trust, happy 
restfulness. And in the ultimate working out of 
things we may know that although everything 

may not develop as we would have it, nevertheless 
16 



242 Man and the Divine Order 

the greatest possible good for all will be achieved. 
Finally, we have the assurance that this universal 
completion of things will include both individual 
and social good ; there will be neither sacrifice of 
individuality nor defeat of human interests. Our 
felicity will not be absolutely complete, for the 
beatific vision in the supreme sense is beheld by 
God alone. Yet although there will always be 
desire unfulfilled, for us who are finite and do not 
wholly know God, there will be unending progress 
to new pleasures and new perfections, beyond 
which the supreme glory of God shall ever reign. 1 
Thus the optimism of Leibniz is at once mathe- 
matically exact and in its way mechanical, yet 
it is at the same time religious. The progressive 
life of the Monads, even the soul of man, is an un- 
folding from within. The development of things 
and ideas is as regular as the rhythmic ticking of 
two clocks, wound up and started at the same in- 
stant. Strictly speaking, there is not a new mo- 
ment in the universe, for every detail had to be 
foreseen and provided for by the great Architect. 
This is the less attractive side of the picture. 
Leibniz carries his harmony too far. One would 
prefer elasticity, freedom to experiment, make 
mistakes, and profit by experience. Why, in fact, 
as Professor James has argued, 2 should there be a 

1 On the Ultimate Origination of Things. 

2 The Will to Believe. 



Optimism of Leibniz 243 

world at all, if all details are foreknown and prede- 
termined? Leibniz might reply that even if all 
was foreknown in the infinite mind, the world -plan 
would not be complete unless objectified, unless 
there actually were a universe of infinite variety, 
with all its complexity of life within the organism 
of Monads. But the practical man would reply 
that it is rather poor consolation to be told that 
" there is as much happiness as possible." The 
mere fact that the struggles and joys of this life of 
ours exist side by side proves that their existence 
was " possible." Common sense shows that the 
universe is a harmony, such a harmony that just 
what we find in the world can coexist. Every- 
thing that is was possible. But that does not 
explain why just this combination came to be : it 
brings no satisfaction to the philanthropist who is 
oppressed by the fact of sin and evil. 

The " best ' ' world would seem to be a realm of 
freedom, a society of souls possessing the power 
of choice and initiative, the kind of world-order 
which leaves the greatest room for individual ex- 
periment. The world in which we actually find 
ourselves is obviously such a world, for man is 
surely ' ' free to stray, ' ' hence he is free to choose 
the moral ideal. The harmony of human society 
is yet to be attained. "It doth not yet appear 
what we shall be." The element of uncertainty 
is part of the zest of life. We feel that there is 



244 Man and the Divine Order 

important work for each of us to do. We must 
organise for righteousness and bend every effort to 
make things come out right. If we could know in 
advance that the whole working of things together 
for good was predetermined, there would obviously 
be no reason for our moral zeal. If knowledge be 
a mere unfoldment, why should we pursue truth? 
Why not sit down at our ease and observe it as it 
unrolls? 

The attempt of Leibniz to describe the divine 
order fell short ; his optimism partook of and was 
limited by the thought of his age, and that thought 
was mechanical. He himself acknowledges the 
inadequacy of his account. But no one can know 
that his words fall short unless he already sees be- 
yond them. We must allow for the ' ' over-beliefs, ' ' 
— that which a writer would express if he could. 
Perhaps Leibniz has succeeded as well as any one 
in what he undertook. His doctrine is in many 
respects permanently valuable, and has in part be- 
come a part of our scientific thinking. 

For example, the idea of the development of 
consciousness from a sleeping to a self-conscious 
condition, the conception of subconsciousness, is 
now perfectly familiar to us. Again, his theory of 
gradations, of continuity, both in the physical 
world and in the mental, is a permanent contri- 
bution. This imperceptible shading of one thing 
into another is precisely what we find in nature. 



Optimism of Leibniz 245 

But more important still is the theory of the soul 
as primarily an active being, as possessing its own 
principle of spontaneity. It is but one step from 
the description of the higher Monads, or souls, as 
mirroring the world, to the later idealism of the 
self whose experience is a realm of "representa- 
tion." The uniqueness of the soul, on which Leib- 
niz insists, counts for a good deal. 

If one were to choose between his principles, 
where there is conflict, one would select his indi- 
vidualism, his plurality of independent selves. 
That each self mirrors the world in a unique way 
is one of the profoundest discoveries of idealism. 
Finally, there is the great thought of the universe 
as an organism in which all the parts are mutually 
adjusted — one of the noblest of all philosophical 
conceptions. If we are not ready to believe that 
society is thus organised, we may at least declare 
it to be true of nature ; and it is an inspiring ideal 
for all humanity. Furthermore, the conception of 
the universe as manifesting the orderliness of God, 
puts before the mind a picture of nature's beauty 
as grounded in the eternal Being, " embosomed in 
beauty." The universe is a harmony. Whether 
it be the "best of all possible worlds," or, better 
still,' the best world unqualifiedly, we cannot in 
our fmitude tell. But the majority of those who 
lift their eyes in adoration to the sky are inclined 
to believe that this is the best world without 



246 Man and the Divine Order 

qualification. As Leibniz says, it gives one great 
confidence in things to hold that all is for the best. 
It inspires great love for God, the quickening love 
which is the strongest stimulus to action. Possi- 
bly the optimistic trust of which he speaks is far 
more sound than the anxious zeal of the moral 
reformer who feels that he must hustle to bring 
things out right — while there is yet time. It may 
also be true, as some very profound men have 
suggested, that when we apparently exercise free- 
will we are really choosing that which God has 
already determined. At any rate, Leibniz assures 
us that what we choose is congruous with the har- 
mony of things, so that, as Emerson says, "none 
of us can wrong the universe." And the morning 
and the evening stars sing delightfully together in 
the universe which Leibniz describes. 

Let us therefore take leave of Leibniz with the 
thought of his comprehensive optimism promin- 
ently in mind. 

It follows from the supreme perfection of God that 
in producing the universe He has chosen the best pos- 
sible plan, in which there is the greatest variety along 
with the greatest order; ground, place, time, being as 
well arranged as possible ; the greatest effect produced 
by the simplest ways; the most power, knowledge, 
happiness, and goodness in created things that the uni- 
verse allowed. . . . Again, it follows from the 
perfection of the Supreme Author not only that the 



Optimism of Leibniz 247 

order of the whole universe is the most perfect that 
can be, but also that each living mirror representing 
the universe, according to its point of view, — that is 
to say, each Monad, each substantial centre, — must 
have its perceptions and its desires as thoroughly well 
ordered as is compatible with all the rest. ... It 
is not only a mirror of the universe of created things 
but also an image of the Deity. The mind has not 
merely a perception of the works of God, but is 
even capable of producing something which resembles 
them. . . . It is for this reason that all spirits, 
whether of men or of angels, entering in virtue of 
reason and of eternal truths into a kind of fellowship 
with God, are members of the City of God 1 . 

1 Principles of Nature and of Grace, §§ 10, 12, 14, 15. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE METHOD OF EMERSON 

IN one sense the method of Emerson is the secret 
of genius. The genius is to be accepted and 
studied, not analysed or imitated. Yet few great 
men have more fully revealed their secret than 
Emerson. It was part of his message to tell men 
how to be great in their way, as he was great in 
his. Hence there are many suggestions which, 
taken as a whole, outline an inner method. To 
combine these autobiographical confessions is to 
gain new insight into the meaning and place of 
Emerson's message, — the part he played in the 
thought of the nineteenth century. 

It is sometimes said that Emerson is obscure. 
It has puzzled the rhetoricians to know how his 
sentences were put together. It is equally diffi- 
cult for the logician to find their rational connec- 
tion. Other critics complain that the great seer 
was unsocial, and that consequently there is a 
marked deficiency in his essays. Finally, the 
charge is brought that he had no method, there- 
fore no system. I shall try to meet these objec- 

248 



The Method of Emerson 249 

tions by showing that Emerson had a method, the 
understanding of which is essential to the com- 
prehension and classification of his philosophy. 

All these criticisms belong together as judg- 
ments from the point of view of conventional 
standards. But Emerson was not conventional; 
and if we are to appreciate his genius we must 
know him for what he was, not condemn him for 
what he was not. He was a nonconformist in 
more senses than one. This was not because of 
a negative reaction from the standards of other 
men, but because his mind was occupied with 
other thoughts that were to him of far greater 
consequence. If we would have some inkling of 
those great thoughts, we must live with Emerson, 
try to observe the conditions which were for him 
supreme, and adore even as he adored. From the 
first sentence of his first essay, Nature, to the last 
of his utterances, Emerson declares his faith in the 
revelations of the living present, as opposed to the 
most sacred beliefs of the ages. God still lives; 
the Spirit speaks now as truly and as fully as ever. 
The hour wherein that voice is heard is holy, and 
should not be profaned by intermixture of other 
voices, for the essential is not what men have said 
but what made them say it. All accounts fail to 
do justice to that sublime message. To know that 
which none could report we must seek the soli- 
tudes of the Spirit. One need not always live in 



250 Man and the Divine Order 

solitude. The ideal is to carry the glad message to 
all mankind. But do not condemn him as unso- 
ciable who has had the vision which would make 
of all nations a kingdom of peace and light if all 
men could but behold it too. Hence Emerson 
says in The Apology: 

Think me not unkind and rude 

That I walk alone in grove and glen; 

I go to the god of the wood 
To fetch his word to men. 

His biographers tell us of men who said that 
Emerson lived the holy life from his youth up, and 
the sentence is often quoted from the New Bed- 
ford auditor who declared that Emerson made the 
opening prayer and gave out the hymn as an angel 
would have spoken. There was that about him 
which showed that he was a citizen of a transcend- 
ental world where ideals were of nobler types. 
From the time of his epoch-making addresses in 
Cambridge, in his younger days, he was ever 
haunted by the thought of a larger man who 
would not permit himself to be narrowed to one 
occupation, who would never become absorbed 
in surfaces, but would live in constant remem- 
brance of the eternal order. His whole life was 
dedicated to the making of "hints" of what he 
saw in the domain of the eternal Beauty, hints for 
all to follow who longed for fulness of life. It is 



The Method of Emerson 251 

this element in his essays and poems which we 
must bear in mind if we would know why he wrote 
as he did. For he is ever confessing his inability 
to say what he would : 

The great Idea baffles wit, 
Language falters under it. 

Of that ineffable essence which we call Spirit he 
that thinks most will say least. We can foresee God 
in the coarse, as it were, distant phenomena of mat- 
ter; but when we try to define and describe Himself, 
both language and thought desert us, and we are as 
helpless as fools and savages. 1 

Yet Emerson is greatly displeased with that 
language which leaves God out. Better to try and 
try, and constantly fail, than be disloyal. 

That which shows God in me, fortifies me. That 
which shows God out of me, makes me a wart and a 
wen. There is no longer a necessary reason for my 
being. Already the long shadows of untimely ob- 
livion creep over me, and I shall decease for ever. 2 

The greatness of Jesus was that there at last was 
a man who was true ''to what is in you and me." 
It is everything to know that the higher gleams 
of light which flash across the mind are not 
ours, but God's. We may not detect at first the 

1 Nature. 2 Divinity School Address. 



252 Man and the Divine Order 

difference between that which is human and 
that which is divine. But if we trust our instinct, 
court nature, overcome servitude to tradition, 
books, creeds, and models, we shall begin to enjoy 
first-hand power and insights. Then life will be- 
gin to be an adjustment between the divine mo- 
ments and those that are for ever secondary. 
Books, for example, are for our idle hours. The 
one thing of value is the active soul, and man is 
truly active when he lives with God. " When we 
can read God directly, the hour is too precious 
to be wasted in other men's transcripts of their 
readings." x 

In the Over-soul Emerson has come nearest to 
telling what he meant by this divine element. 
The language is sometimes vague and ambiguous, 
but one can read between the lines. 

Man is a stream whose source is hidden. Our being 
is descending into us from we know not whence. I 
am constrained every moment to acknowledge a higher 
origin for events than the will I call mine. ... I 
desire and look up and put myself in the attitude of 
reception, but from some alien energy the visions 
come. . . . Every man's words who speaks from 
that life must sound vain to those who do not dwell 
in the same thought on their own account. I dare 
not speak for it. My words do not carry its august 
sense; they all fall short and cold. Only itself can 
1 The American Scholar. 



The Method of Emerson 253 

inspire whom it will, and behold! their speech shall 
be lyrical, and sweet, and universal as the rising of 
the wind. 

No one can tell precisely what part of the 
higher life is of God alone, what from man, and 
no one need try; for in that ineffable union the 
soul is fulfilling its proper and highest function. 
That which flows into the soul is the universal life 
ere it is differentiated. The soul beholds wholes, 
essences, such as justice, love, power, back of 
and within their particular manifestation. Time 
is no longer a condition ; the soul possesses time, 
and dissolves events into laws and values. Life 
is no less rich than before ; the soul has lost no- 
thing and is as truly individual ; it has come to 
its own, found the real environment of all being. 
Hence the soul is able to anticipate the events of 
man's objective life. Men no longer seem to be 
isolated and meaningless fragments. There is a 
Somewhat that unites them all and which will 
inspire all. Call that One what you will, express 
it in your own way. Withal, be a man, do your 
work, pursue your interests to the end. But in 
all your calculations remember henceforth to take 
account of the highest law. Ground your life in 
that pure consciousness, and your whole thought 
will gradually expand to its great proportions. 

Emerson lives in awareness of the same great 



254 Man and the Divine Order 

Presence when he is alone with nature, and his 
poems are often more successful than his prose in 
suggesting the " ineffable." 

If I could put my woods in song, 
And tell what's there enjoyed, 

All men would to my garden throng 
And leave the cities void. 

Wondering voices in the air, 

And murmurs in the wold, 
Speak what I cannot declare, 

Yet cannot all withhold. 

The first great thought, then, is Emerson's 
poetic disclosure of his inner life, his belief in 
the environing Spirit as the supreme reality. In 
Nature he expresses this thought very clearly 
when he says : 

Man is conscious of a universal soul within or be- 
hind his individual life, wherein, as in a firmament, 
the natures of Justice, Truth, Love, Freedom, arise 
and shine. This universal soul he calls Reason; it 
is not mine or thine, or his, but we are its; we are its 
property and men. And the blue sky in which the 
private earth is buried, the sky with its eternal calm 
and full of everlasting orbs, is the type of reason. 

One must first be aware of this soul which ani- 
mates all men, and to which all men are "inlets," 
in order to have somewhat to say ; and if one have 



The Method of Emerson 255 

found the Spirit, the expression will take care of 
itself. No plan of ours can equal the method of 
the Spirit. 

I cannot [says Emerson] nor can any man speak 
precisely of things so sublime, but it seems to me the 
wit of man, his strength, his grace, his tendency, his 
art, is the grace and the presence of God. It is be- 
yond explanation. When all is said and done, the 
rapt saint is the only logician. 1 

On account of this belief in the Over-soul, and 
because of his many mystical sentences, Emerson 
has been frequently classed as a mystic in the 
negative sense. In the Over -soul he indulges in 
such expressions as these: "The act of seeing and 
the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the sub- 
ject and the object, are one." With him the 
term "soul" meant interchangeably God or man; 
and in some sentences he practically loses sight of 
man. Some admirers of Hindoo mysticism have 
found such resemblances to Oriental pantheism 
that they declare Emerson to be an exponent of 
it in other terms. Again, devotees of Swedenborg 
have said that he derived his inspiration from the 
great mystic of the North. But Emerson is for 
ever Emerson. He borrowed freely, but only 
what expressed himself. It would be a serious 
mistake to judge him by his poem Brahma, which 

1 Method of Nature. 



256 Man and the Divine Order 

happens to be a literal rendering of a Hindoo idea. 
It would be equally erroneous to declare that his 
spiritual philosophy was borrowed from Sweden- 
borg, who was only one of many who helped him 
to find himself. 

Deeper than the fact of his borrowings was the 
discernment which enabled him to steer clear of 
the irrational and the visionary. Emerson is a 
wholly safe guide, whereas in the writings of 
Swedenborg one must sometimes make allowances 
for visionary exaggerations. Again, he is strong 
where Oriental pantheism is weak. One cannot 
even judge him by the mysticism of the Over -soul. 
It is necessary to put statement with statement, 
combine essay with essay, to find his total mean- 
ing. If in one sentence he is a pantheist, in ten he 
is an individualist of the most pronounced Ameri- 
can type. His works are rather the correctives of 
most mystical systems. There is an entire absence 
of the assurance and ill-concealed dogmatism 
which so often make the claimants of mysticism 
offensive. Emerson makes no great claims for 
himself. He is no self-centred egoist. He simply 
endeavours to describe, as well as language can 
describe, the poetic facts of the higher life. He 
seeks to transcend the personal and the historical. 
That is precisely why he is so truly original, so 
decidedly himself. That is also why he really is 
a prophet of God, why one feels his revelations to 



The Method of Emerson 257 

be genuine, not tinged with those suspicions of in- 
sanity which sometimes mar the writings of the 
mystics. 

The typical mystic is one who becomes so filled 
with the divine vision, as he interprets it, that he 
forgets that he is interpreting. Hence he under- 
estimates reason, denies the personal equation, 
and falls into all sorts of speculative absurdities, 
unaware that he is the more clearly revealing his 
own limitations. In his ecstasy, the mystic de- 
clares that this universe is God, or that he himself 
is Brahman, the Absolute. But Emerson does 
not tend that way ; he is never disloyal either to 
man or to reason. He pleads above all for recog- 
nition of the divine presence, as each individual 
may know it. Thus Emerson stands in the front 
rank among the great seers of the ages who have 
brought God near. He really reveals God. The 
conduct which he advises men to adopt is the 
conduct of the devout theist, not that of the pan- 
theist. He did not bid man lose himself in blissful 
contemplation. He did not counsel asceticism, 
nor was he in the least degree occult, pessimistic, 
or fond of the ecstatically abnormal. He neither 
exalted himself as a seer of visions, nor inculcated 
a method of self -absorption. His thought was 
distinctly ethical, as opposed to the implied denial 
of any real basis for ethics in all pantheistic sys- 
tems. He enunciated a great law, called man's 



258 Man and the Divine Order 

attention to his infinite resources, the possibilities 
of guidance, of vigorous manliness. "We hear 
that we may speak, " he said. Man is an active be- 
ing. Each must play his part in the world ; the 
fact that we are here shows that each of us can 
contribute his share. Instead of losing himself 
in ecstatic bliss, instead of sinking himself in the 
great whole, man should take the opposite course, 
namely, believe his own thought, express his own 
life, be not only " Man Thinking" but Man Acting. 

Your goodness must have some edge to it, else it is 
none. . . . Do your work and I shall know you. 
Do your work, and you shall reinforce yourself. . . . 
Every new mind is a new classification. Insist on 
yourself; never imitate. Do that which is assigned 
to you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too 
much. 1 

It is because Emerson encourages every man to 
be himself, to reverence his private thought and 
reveal it as of real worth, that he has been so in- 
spiring to multitudes of men. He declares that 
"into every intelligence there is a door which is 
never closed, through which the Creator passes." 
"That which each can do best, none but his 
Maker can teach him." "A man is entitled to be 
valued by his best moment." But we must grant 
the same privileges to every human soul. "You 
are trying to make that man another you. One 's 

1 Self -Reliance. 



The Method of Emerson 259 

enough." "Nature never rhymes her children." 
We must remember both that " dedication to one 
thought is quickly odious," and that "the power 
of a man increases steadily by continuance in one 
direction." "Nothing is more rare in any man 
than an act of his own." Man must then learn 
that nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of 
his own mind, that "each individual soul is such 
by virtue of its being a power to translate the 
world into some particular language of its own." 
In so far as we have really lived and thought, and 
can abandon ourselves to the poetic expression of 
our individual experience, each of us has a mes- 
sage to give which no one else can report as well, 
which no one can imitate, which is essential even 
to God. 

Emerson does not teach this self -trust because 
he believes, with some of the mystics, that we are 
in reality one great Being, but because truth is so 
great and life so rich that it needs us one and all 
to express it. God is not sufficient by Himself, 
but most have nature to reveal Him. Nature is 
inadequate; there must be human life, too. It 
makes little difference to Emerson what you call 
nature ; you must at least respect it as of worth, 
as teaching its lesson, revealing its own beauty, 
yet eternally revealing the divine Being. God 
speaks to man through nature, but also in the 
inmost recesses of the soul. There is a sense in 



260 Man and the Divine Order 

which one must say that man and God are one, 
that the union is "ineffable in every act of the 
soul." It would be profane to undertake to draw 
a distinction and say : This much God said ; this 
came from my own wit; there Spirit ceases, and 
here my poor self begins. The higher the soul is 
fted, and the more fully God speaks, the larger 
allowance must be made for that element which 
no analysis can detect. But no writer is more 
true than Emerson to the human side of this 
gracious union. The wonder and beauty of it all 
is made the greater by the constant reminder that 
these great moments are unusual, that they are 
but flashes of an indescribable glory which illum- 
ines the mind for a moment, only to leave it with 
a deepened sense of its own finitude. Emerson 
confesses that all the days are so uncomfortable 
while they pass that he wonders how he is ever 
able to accomplish anything. 

Our moods do not believe in each other. To-day 
I am full of thoughts, and can write what I please. 
I see no reason why I should not have the same 
thought, the same power of expression, to-morrow. 
What I write, whilst I write, seems the most natural 
thing in the world, but yesterday I saw a dreary 
vacuity in this direction where now I see so much; 
and a month hence I doubt not, I shall wonder who 
he was who wrote so many continuous pages. 1 

1 Circles. 



The Method of Emerson 261 

Thus the human and the divine run side by 
side in Emerson, and we must take account of 
both factors, both his individual power and that 
which was beyond him. 

Canst thou copy in verse one chime 

Of the wood-bell's peal and cry, 
Write in a book the morning's prime, 

Or match with words that tender sky? 
Wonderful verse of the gods, 

Of one import, of varied tone; 
They chant the bliss of their abodes 

To man imprisoned in his own. 

When Emerson admits his inability to say what 
he would, it is because he is so keenly aware of the 
tremendous conditions put upon one who would 
report the realities of things. He sees such truth 
alike in our finitude, in nature and in society, that 
he would fain be true to all. To sunder is to mar. 
Only "the perfect whole" suffices, yet in that 
boundless beauty all the parts reside, without 
injury or neglect. " A beauty not explicable is 
dearer than a beauty which we can see the end of." 

Chide me not, laborious band, 

For the idle flowers I brought ; 
Every aster in my hand 

Goes home loaded with a thought. 



262 Man and the Divine Order 

There was never mystery 

But 't is figured in the flowers ; 
Was never sacred history 

But birds tell it in the bowers. 

One harvest from thy field 

Homeward brought the oxen strong; 

A second crop thine acres yield, 
Which I gather in a song. 1 

We are now prepared to understand what Emer- 
son meant by saying that "our moods do not 
agree with each other." It is not because of any 
conflict in the great totality of things, nor is it 
because all moods are ultimately one, and man 
must become God in order to possess that one. 
It is the multiplicity of experiences, the pluralism 
in Emerson, rather than the mysticism, which is 
the clue to his thought. There is no mood large 
enough to harmonise all, no reason that can be 
assigned which shall be adequate. All these frag- 
ments are of worth in themselves; it would mar 
both their truth and their beauty to crowd them 
into any one formula. Therefore Emerson con- 
fessed his inability to give the reasons for his faith. 
Once, when an interested auditor besought him 
at the close of a lecture to explain what he meant 
by a certain sentence, he could only say, " I may 
have known when I wrote it, but I cannot tell 
1 The Apology. 



The Method of Emerson 263 

now." To the end he continued to write what he 
called "anecdotes of the intellect," unable to sup- 
ply a principle of unification. "The great gifts 
are not got by analysis," he insisted. "We do 
what we must and call it by the best names we 
can." 

In one of his latest and most profound essays 1 
Emerson says: 

I think that philosophy is still rude and elementary. 
It will one day be taught by poets. The poet is in 
the natural attitude — he is believing; the philoso- 
pher, after some struggle, having only reasons for 
believing. 

At first glance this seems to be a negative con- 
fession, this dictum that our moods do not agree. 
It will be said that Emerson ought to have sought 
the reasons for his faith, — he should have aimed 
at rational consistency. But if he had pursued 
this method, would he have been Emerson? Is 
the lack of consistency on his part due to inability 
to reason, or was his insight into the reality of 
things so true and searching that he saw the im- 
possibility of rationalising his varied intuitions? 
He warns us that "a foolish consistency is the 
hobgoblin of little minds," and is a standard with 
which "a great soul has simply nothing to do." 

1 Natural History of Intellect. 



264 Man and the Divine Order 

Yet, who was ever more consistent than Emerson 
in clinging to the revelations of the Spirit, even 
when the notes he made of those revelations, the 
hints he gave, failed to combine into any of the 
conventional formulas of men ? 

It was not because of any lack of insight, but 
rather because his insight was more penetrating, 
that Emerson could write, ''This knot of nature 
is so well tied that nobody was ever cunning 
enough to find the two ends." But the following 
quotation from the lecture on Plato r shows a yet 
greater depth of insight into the truth that is past 
finding out : 

These things we are forced to say, if we must con- 
sider the effort of Plato, or of any philosopher, to dis- 
pose of Nature, which will not be disposed of. No 
power of genius has ever yet had the smallest success 
in explaining existence. The perfect enigma remains. 

Again, in his philosophical lectures at Harvard 
in 1870, 2 Emerson makes his thought still more 
explicit : 

I cannot myself use that systematic form which is 
reckoned essential in treating the science of the mind. 
But if one can say so without arrogance, I might sug- 
gest that he who contents himself with dotting a 
fragmentary curve, recording only what facts he has 

1 Representative Men. 

2 Natural History of Intellect. 



The Method of Emerson 265 

observed, without attempting to arrange them within 
one outline, follows a system also — a system as grand 
as any other, though he does not interfere with its 
vast curves by prematurely forcing them into a circle 
or ellipse, but only draws that arc which he clearly 
sees, and waits for a new opportunity, well assured 
that these observed arcs will consist with each other. 

Scattered here and there through the essays 
there are many paragraphs which show that 
Emerson very keenly appreciated what an ultim- 
ate philosophy must be, though he could not 
himself carry out the suggestion. ''Whenever a 
true theory appears, it will be its own evidence. 
Its test is, that it will explain all phenomena." 1 
It will also account for evil, for Emerson by no 
means ignores the darker side of life. He assures 
us that ' ' no picture of life can have any veracity 
that does not admit the odious facts." Yet, "a 
man is a man only as he makes life and nature 
happier to us." 2 " We must be at the top of our 
condition to understand anything rightly." 3 "It 
is true that there is evil and good, night and day ; 
but these are not equal. The day is great and 
final. The night is for the day, but the day is not 
for the night." 4 

In reality everything is made of one hidden 
stuff; all things are moral. Only from a very 

1 Nature. 2 Success. 3 Works and Days. 4 Success. 



266 Man and the Divine Order 

broad point of view can we behold the true sig- 
nificance of things. Sin is really limitation; we 
have not yet entered into the fulness of life. The 
truth and beauty of life are even now revealed 
everywhere before us but, "our eyes are holden 
that we cannot see things that stare us in the face, 
until the hour arrives when the mind is ripened." 
Meanwhile we must read deeply in such essays as 
Compensation and Spiritual Laws to learn the 
meaning of these more darksome stages. At this 
point one would like to quote the whole of the 
essay on Experience, in which Emerson very 
clearly expresses the wise man's attitude toward 
the wonderful stream of life whereof we find our- 
selves a part. 

But it is in S el] -Reliance that Emerson best 
combines the individual attitude with the religious 
spi it of adoration. 

In this pleasing, contrite wood-life which God 
allows me, let me record day by day my honest 
thought without prospect or retrospect, and, I can- 
not doubt, it will be found symmetrical, though I 
mean it not and see it not. . . . Good and bad 
are but names very readily transferable to that or 
this; the only right is what is after my constitution, 
the only wrong what is against it. . . . We first 
share the life by which things exist, and afterwards 
see them as appearances in nature, and forget that we 
shared their cause. 



The Method of Emerson 267 

The profound essay entitled Circles is, from 
first to last, an exposition of Emerson's method 
and contains a number of important warnings : 

Let me remind the reader that I am only an experi- 
menter. Do not set the least value on what I do, or 
the least discredit on what I do not, as if I pretended 
to settle anything as true or false. I unsettle all 
things. No facts are to me sacred ; none are profane ; 
I simply experiment, an endless seeker, with no Past 
at my back. . . . Nothing is secure but life, tran- 
sition, the energising spirit. . . . No truth is so 
sublime but it may be trivial to-morrow in the light 
of new thoughts. People wish to be settled ; only as 
far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them. 

These are the statements of one who saw the 
magnitude of the philosophic task. He declared 
life to be "full of surprises" and permanence but 
"a word of degrees." Therefore he made large 
reservations for future experience. Around the 
largest circle a man may draw, the next genius 
will probably draw a larger. "Our part is to keep 
aloof from all moorings and afloat." To chroni- 
cle the mood of to-day is far greater than to force 
the lesson of to-day into a system of temperamen- 
tal devising. Temperament is simply "the iron 
wire" on which the various moods are strung, and 
is subject to illusions. * Since the greatest wisdom 

1 Experience. 



268 Man and the Divine Order 

in life consists in expressing the mood of the hour 
the man who is faithful to the present inspiration 
is likely to have little time for aught else. 

The Spirit is progressive. What it makes 
known to-day is the truth for to-day. Listen 
while the Spirit speaketh, but know that to-day's 
truth is but a note in a great symphony. Only 
man's total history shall show his dignity and 
worth as an organ of the Spirit. Only the eter- 
nal revelation is adequate to make known the real. 
Unless a man is an "experimenter," with "no 
Past" at his back, he does not really love Truth, 
but only its forms and shows. The whole tale has 
not been told. There may be other types of ex- 
perience, other revelations yet to be made known. 
It is too soon to begin to square accounts. Do 
not, then, cling to forms and standards. Do not 
be troubled over problems. Avail yourself of the 
influx of that informing Spirit whose words of 
wisdom and comfort and cheer, whispered in the 
silence of the night, in the solitude of nature, or 
during your "lowly listenings" shall make good 
the promises of the hope already strong within. 

Yet Emerson did not base his conclusions on 
personal experience alone. He ranged through 
the literature of the ages and was a wide reader 
of poetry and philosophy. He was not what is 
called a scholarly reader in the exact sense. He 
read what appealed to him. But he knew enough 



The Method of Emerson 269 

about all systems to know that none was suffi- 
ciently comprehensive to contain all truth; that 
not all the systems combined had exhausted the 
"chambers and magazines of the soul." 

Where do we find ourselves? [he asks]. In a series 
of which we do not know the extremes, and believe 
that it has none. We wake and find ourselves on a 
stair ; there are stairs below us which we seem to have 
ascended; there are stairs above us, many a one, 
which go upward and out of sight. . . . Thus 
journeys the mighty Ideal before us; it never was 
known to fall into the rear. 1 

The first essential for all who would follow in 
the same pathway is fidelity to the spontaneous 
revelations of the Spirit. We must not only be 
unhampered by tradition, but remember that as 
no facts are sacred, " every action admits of being 
outdone." 2 "Our spontaneous action is always 
best." We are admonished to trust our instinct 
to the end, though we can render no reason ; for 
" it is vain to hurry it. By trusting it to the end, 
it shall ripen into truth, and you shall know why 
you believe." 3 

Emerson thus gives abundant reasons for his 
faith. Nothing could be more explicit than the 
rationale of his method, as unfolded in Circles 
and Intellect. When one understands that method, 

1 Experience. 2 Circles. 3 Intellect. 



270 Man and the Divine Order 

the significance of such sentences as the follow- 
ing is seen: "When I watch that flowing river 
which, out of regions I see not, pours for a 
season its streams into me, I see that I am a 
pensioner; not a cause, but a surprised spectator 
of this ethereal water." * One who has felt the 
presence of the creative Spirit must rationalise his 
whole conduct in conformity to the higher law 
which we are constrained to recognise as the real 
origin of events. Since it is in our "easy, simple, 
spontaneous actions that we are strong," we must 
make a fine art of life, with abundant reservations 
for the ' ' unexpected . ' ' 

It is the poet who comes nearest to revealing 
the great truths of the "stairway of surprise," 
for the poet more fully yields himself to the vision 
of the moment, while the philosopher may intrude 
a sceptical obstacle. Since one can at best but 
hint at the glories of the transcendental vision, that 
language is most successful which interposes the 
least obstacle. It is the "somewhat" which the 
poet beheld that is the great reality, not his poor 
report of what he saw, or heard, and felt. We 
must not, then, mistake the secondary for the 
primary. 

It would be difficult to conceive of a more pro- 
nounced empiricism than is contained in the hints 
which Emerson gives of his highest method, and 

1 Over-soul. 



The Method of Emerson 271 

the reason he gives why each man should follow 
the promptings of the Spirit, in his own way, and 
wherever his instinct leads him. This empiricism 
is even profounder than that in which one re- 
serves room for possible experiences on some 
other planet. For wherever one may be, how- 
ever deeply one may enter into other types of ex- 
istence, there is always the possibility that the 
Spirit may speak a profounder message to the 
soul. The progress of the soul's experiences is 
measured, not by the richness of its temporal life 
so much as by its nearness to the Spirit, and this 
relation pertains to eternity, not to time. It 
would seem impossible ever to say, The circle is 
closed. The next moment might belie this state- 
ment. To live eternally in ever closer yet in ever 
varying relation to the Spirit, might at best only 
be to behold the Spirit as one soul can perceive it, 
never to be "absorbed" or to pass over into any 
other soul. At any rate, we could never know, 
until we had tried, what it is to attain a full tem- 
peramental vision, and our philosophy of Spirit 
must be left open until we know far more than we 
understand now. Better to be for ever inconsist- 
ent than to purchase consistency at the cost of 
other possible revelations of the Spirit. 

It is impossible, then, to judge Emerson by the 
letter. His doctrine is so far empirical that one 
must have some measure of the same experience 



272 Man and the Divine Order 

by employment of the same method to appreciate 
what he means ; and if one has felt the experience 
one cannot put the canons of the letter first. 
Emerson's method was always to let the inspira- 
tions of the Spirit lead the way, instead of inflict- 
ing one's hypotheses and presuppositions upon 
the Spirit. He wanted to know what life was for 
the Spirit, not what it could be made to be for a 
certain philosophical demand. The profoundest 
truth of his life is the great truth of the Gospel 
expressed in other terms. He succeeded at the 
same time in putting himself more fully aside 
than most people and in bringing the Spirit nearer. 
He is less hampered by the limitations of his age 
and of the language he uses than are the majority 
of seers. He is less negative, wiser, more direct, 
and better poised: hence he is a safer guide to 
those who would live in the Spirit. 

In taking leave of Emerson we must emphasise 
the fact that his method of adaptation to the 
progressive revelations of the Spirit involves 
profound self-knowledge and adjustment to the 
changing relations of our inner life, which is "full 
of surprises." 

We do not guess to-day the mood, the pleasure, the 
power of to-morrow, when we are building up our 
being. The new position of the advancing man has 
all the powers of the old, yet has them all new. It 



The Method of Emerson 273 

carries in its bosom all the energies of the past, yet is 
itself an exhalation of the morning. I cast away in 
this new moment all my hoarded knowledge as vacant 
and vain. Now, for the first time, seem I to know 
anything rightly. The simplest words — we do not 
know what they mean, except when we love and 
aspire. 1 

Since "God enters by a private door into 
every individual," our part is to trust the inmost 
prompting, await further insights when the way 
is obscure, and, above all, to be ever ready to 
follow the latest leading. It is only from the ex- 
ternal point of view that this seems inconsistent. 
We must be ready to move forward in order to 
retain what we have. " God offers to every mind 
its choice between truth and repose. Take what 
you please — you can never have both." "Men 
walk as prophecies of the next age." It is what 
we would be, what we are ever seeking, that is 
noblest. "That which is for us" does indeed 
"gravitate to us," but no prophecy of ours can 
foretell all that shall come. Therefore remember 
that even what we call a "law" describes merely 
what we have thus far noted. There is a "high- 
est law" which no man can formulate. Just 
because we are more than ourselves in the "inef- 
fable " moments, we should not expect to over- 
take our insights. Better one word uttered in 

1 Circles. 
18 



274 Man and the Divine Order 

response to that Spirit than a thousand words in 
the letter. 

Himself from God he could not free; 
He builded better than he knew; 
The conscious stone to beauty grew. 

Emerson had no system in the accepted sense 
of the word. He had a conviction, he maintained 
an ideal attitude, he had a great faith. Thus he 
was a poet, a religious prophet, rather than a 
philosopher. As such he occupies a foremost 
place among those whose insights were too sub- 
lime for explication, those whose writings have 
been the inspiration of thousands of lesser men. 
One must be an Emerson to know the secret of 
Emerson. At best one can but hope that one has 
done justice to his genius where others have mis- 
understood him. 

Yet, if to be a philosopher means to discover 
a meaning in human life, a value in experience 
of which most men are oblivious ; if to find more 
in philosophy than any system could contain, 
then Emerson was a philosopher of philosophers. 
Above all else, he stood for fidelity to the divine 
vision, the reality which has been the basis of the 
greatest systems; whereas many have neglected 
the reality for the appearance. He stood with 
open vision in the presence of an order of things 
which for him was the supreme beauty, goodness. 



The Method of Emerson 275 

All else was subordinate to that. Hence all form- 
ulations were subordinate. If other men would 
listen, they, too, would hear the diviner harmonies. 
Was it not, then, a profound philosophical conclu- 
sion which led him to reject all particular systems ? 
Has he not a consistent doctrine in a sense which 
puts to shame most systems ; which proves all men 
inconsistent who leave out the very heart of 
life? 

If this is true of Emerson's thought, how shallow 
is that judgment which declares that his life was 
unsocial, that, in his optimism, he did not take 
account of the darker facts of life ? When a man 
is able to live on the heights and poetically tell 
what he there beholds, what have you to say? 
It is by aspiration for that same reality that men 
most surely mount out of the darker depths of 
life. If one who dwells on the heights has less to 
say on some topics which ordinarily engage the 
conventionally social man, the blame is not to 
be cast on the seer. It is rather for those who 
meet him, and who find him different from other 
men, to search for the defect in themselves which 
excludes them from participation in the seer's 
world. 

But if the foregoing contentions be sound, Em- 
erson was not merely a poet of the Over-soul, 
but the exponent of a complete art of seer- 
ship. This is, perhaps, the most helpful side of 



276 Man and the Divine Order 

Emerson's teaching. While, then, Emerson did 
not himself gather all his results into a reasoned 
system, the elements are there for those who care 
to collect and unify them. The first essential is to 
grasp Emerson's empirical method, begin to live 
as nearly as you can in your way as he lived in his 
way. When you have begun to live by the Spirit 
as he lived you will find the clues about which he 
has written so persuasively. 

Of the great poets and men of genius we usually 
say, Let them be as they are ; not one word would 
we change, else were they not themselves. And 
so one would not have Emerson otherwise than 
Emerson. To criticise him adversely is, generally 
speaking, to put one's self in an unfavourable 
light. Yet when it is a question whether or not 
to adopt Emerson's method in so far as one un- 
derstands it, other considerations at once arise. 
To adopt his method might be to imitate the form 
but not his spirit. Deprived of his poetic genius, 
one is compelled to add to his method that which, 
for less gifted men, seems to be needed to com- 
plete it. For if we are to adopt his empiricism, 
we must consider the question, How may we best 
attain adjustment to the conditions of the ad- 
vancing spiritual life? What is the proper rela- 
tion between the receptive and the co-ordinating 
faculty ? 

If we are to find the deeper meaning of the 



The Method of Emerson 277 

moods which " disbelieve in one another," we must 
have a method of comparison as well as one of re- 
ceptivity. Emerson at thirty-five and forty is 
the ideal of all who would obey when the Spirit 
speaks. But if Emerson in his last years was in- 
capable of combining his own fragmentary moods 
into literary synthesis, perhaps we may find in 
Cabot's statement concerning him — namely, that 
he felt the need of a regular occupation J — a clue 
to the supplementary method. 

To follow this suggestion is not to say that one 
would have Emerson other than his books reveal 
him. Had he cared as much for rational pro- 
cesses as the technical philosophers, he would not, 
let us repeat, have been Emerson. In view of all 
that he accomplished, hampered by ill-health and 
adverse circumstances, one could not ask for 
aught more. Yet Emerson's own empiricism 
suggests the possibility of its fuller concrete appli- 
cation, the rounding out of the life that would be 
entirely faithful to the Spirit. Were one to fol- 
low the clue of receptivity only, the mind might 
weaken in the course of time. There are occa- 
sions when the more strenuous endeavour teaches 
most, when it is not well to follow the line of least 
resistance. Hence it is well to bear in mind Emer- 
son's vigorous individualism; the constructive, 
combining function by which the soul reacts upon 

1 See J. E. Cabot's Memoir of Emerson. 



278 Man and the Divine Order 

its visions and transfuses them with its unifying 
power. 

The corrective of what for some would be a 
weakening method, if they followed that alone, is 
perhaps better illustrated by Martineau than by 
Emerson. Martineau preserved his remarkably 
keen, precise, systematic, yet saintly thought 
throughout a productive life of more than ninety 
years, near the close of which he wrote several 
great works on ethics and religion. One would 
like to dwell as near the central Source as Emer- 
son, — write as he wrote at his best ; then, having 
given full and uncritical expression to the higher 
insights, examine them with the discriminative 
thought of Martineau, who was not content until 
he had made every idea transparently clear. Let 
us first have Emerson's Over -soul untampered 
with. Then let us ferret out pantheism with the 
almost heartless insistence of Martineau. Let us 
try to co-ordinate the two methods in our lives 
that we may co-ordinate our varied moods in a 
larger synthesis of thought. Philosophy must be 
an art as well as a science. There must be con- 
crete application of the highest discoveries of the 
spiritual vision. 

If the above suggestion be a sound one, Emer- 
son's empiricism reveals limitations which are not 
ordinarily recognised in philosophy. The analyti- 
cal method is not only inadequate, but should 



The Method of Emerson 279 

succeed rather than precede other methods. 
Reason is not the productive faculty, it is that 
which examines and discovers wisdom's wealth 
after spiritual insight has made that wisdom 
known. The intellect should not intrude ; it must 
not insist on its formulas, but must be a willing 
servant, ready to aid the Spirit in its struggles for 
self-expression. The true method will be recept- 
ive, comparative, analytical, and constructive by 
turns ; it will be organic, and the result will be an 
organic empiricism with one side left " open to the 
deeps of spiritual nature." 

Thus the unity of Emerson's method is express- 
ive of his belief concerning the soul. Beneath 
the apparent ambiguities in his use of the word 
"soul" there is a truth which demands just this 
seeming inconsistency to express its rich content. 
Sometimes the soul seems to be God ; sometimes it 
is surely one's own prosaic finitude. The prose 
reveals the multiplicity, the poetry declares the 
unity. There is a God-man mood when there is 
"no bar or wall between." In that moment one 
is neither self alone, nor wholly God ; but God is 
over and around the human soul in ineffable union. 
That is the first great fact. The second is that the 
soul shall presently declare in varied words and 
phrases that which it saw, felt, became in a flash. 
That " each of us is here shows that the soul had 
need of an organ here" is as great a truth as 



280 Man and the Divine Order 

the fact of ineffable union. Both the poetry 
and the prose are needed, and if, in this account, 
only the prosaic side of Emerson's method has 
been made explicit, possibly the poetic has been 
at least dimly suggested. 



CHAPTER XII 

PHILOSOPHY 

FOR several generations it has been customary 
to despise philosophy, howbeit the history of 
thought has never been so widely and fruitfully 
studied as during this same period. Scholars of a 
certain scientific type constantly speak slurringly 
of metaphysics as belonging to the age of myth, 
whereupon they proceed to propound a meta- 
physic of their own. The unlettered man proudly 
condemns philosophy as ''speculative." Strange 
to say, even devotees of philosophy are some- 
times heard to declare that there is nothing prac- 
tical in such a study. Again, some who have read 
a few metaphysical treatises in their college days, 
and hastily arrived at the superficial conclusion 
that nothing can be known, continue the remain- 
der of their life to talk as if they knew all about 
the profoundest science that ever engaged the 
human mind. 

Philosophy is so frequently and thoroughly 
misunderstood that it is necessary again and 
again to state the philosophical ideal and point to 

281 



282 Man and the Divine Order 

the rich achievements of the ages. Philosophy 
may be, and has often been speculative, but for 
thousands of years it has been far more than that. 
It has sometimes led to such scepticism that prac- 
tical life has been wholly sundered from it. But 
such instances are warnings by the way; they 
prove nothing against philosophy. Even Hume, 
the prince of English sceptics, possessed a con- 
structive ethical faith, and some of his profound- 
est criticisms of religion point the way to a larger 
doctrine which may have been in part his own. 
The fact that he failed to recast his reflections in 
positive form should not deter one from engaging 
in the reconstruction of even his most negative 
results. To stop with Hume, declare that "rea- 
son is poor," and philosophy is "the thinnest sci- 
ence," would be like putting out one's eyes and 
declaring that all the world is dark. Philosophy 
is in part analytical, and reason often fails to re- 
cast its data. But analysis is the merest begin- 
ning. Reason is infinitely rich, and philosophy 
is the fullest of the sciences. 

If you would know what philosophy is, do not 
consult the small men in the metaphysical world. 
Read the great histories of philosophy and read 
the great men themselves who, from Plato and 
Aristotle to the days of Renouvier and Royce, 
have dealt with the facts of life in a large-minded 
way. 



Philosophy 283 

Philosophy is not an artificial scheme of know- 
ledge, a supernatural process of ferreting out life's 
mysteries. It starts in an every-day, common- 
sense spirit with facts of nature, evolution, con- 
sciousness, and the seer's vision of the divine 
order, and seeks their ultimate significance. When 
a hundred men of science have investigated the 
phenomena of nature and contributed a hundred 
results, it is the office of philosophy to seek, not 
necessarily to harmonise but to understand and 
take account of them. If a hundred seers who 
claim to be divinely inspired set forth as many 
different ideas of God, it is the philosopher who 
penetrates beyond this mere relativity to find the 
ultimate concept of the divine nature implied in 
the hundred visions. Scientific men and seers are 
specialists who do not know their own full mean- 
ing. The philosopher must be the profoundest of 
mortals. His science begins where all other sci- 
ences end. Yet, let us repeat, his subject-matter 
is the experiences of every-day life. 

We may therefore define philosophy as a sys- 
tem of knowledge, the ultimate ideal of which 
is the complete interpretation of experience. All 
knowledge begins in experience. All knowledge 
is of experience. The act of knowing is an ex- 
perience. Anything existing beyond experience 
would only be so far known as it should conceiv- 
ably exist in relation to experience. All reflection 



284 Man and the Divine Order 

begins with the contemplation of experience, and 
it was experience which men set out to under- 
stand. It is easy, however, to forget this, and 
create artificial thought -worlds which have almost 
no empirical foundation. It is therefore necessary 
to remind ourselves of that which ought to be 
obvious. If philosophers would follow the clues 
given by experience there wou d be more pro- 
gress in solving the riddles of the ages. The dis- 
repute into which philosophy has sometimes fallen 
is largely due to neglect of the empirical method. 
Philosophy shows that experience does not at 
once and fully make its significance known in our 
consciousness ; we are too busily engaged in hav- 
ing the experience to rationalise it. We must 
scrutinise, examine, compare, seek general prin- 
ciples by which to organise vast collections of 
empirical data. Starting with presented experi- 
ence, philosophy passes beyond it to its meaning. 
Even then it must constantly refer to presented 
experience as remembered, as just now coming, 
and as possible. The data of experience are so 
rich that philosophy must resort to all sorts of de- 
vices to adapt itself to the situation. The chief 
difficulty is that some forget that they are de- 
vices, and therefore misunderstand. The usual 
process is abstraction, and conclusions drawn 
from abstractions. The logical process is some- 
times carried so far that the concrete life of the 



Philosophy 285 

Spirit is forgotten. To pursue spiritual ideals 
alone is to neglect to be rational. To seek only 
the practical is to fall into certain errors ; yet to 
seek more truth is to forget that philosophy set 
out to tell men what life really is and how it may 
be wisely lived. If we are to profit by the lessons 
of the ages we must steadily avoid all extremes. 

The fact that philosophers disagree is some- 
times taken to mean that philosophy is largely 
negative As a matter of fact, there has been 
a steady development from the physical theory 
of Thales to the empiricism of Professor James. 
Sceptical periods have intervened, but reconstruct- 
ive periods have always followed To know the 
meaning of the history of philosophy, even the 
prof oundest mind must devote years to the study ; 
while for the majority a lifetime is none too long. 
Histories of philosophy are valuable aids for a 
time ; but the time comes when the critical study 
of the great works will alone suffice. 

There are many reasons why philosophy is mis- 
understood. Some are so unfortunate as to be- 
gin their study with G. H. Lewes 's History of 
Philosophy, a miserably prejudiced piece of work. 
The author of this one-sided, dogmatic treatise 
held that the history of philosophy is the record 
of "the aberrations of the human mind." No 
philosopher himself, he wrote his two volumes to 
show that philosophy is impossible. Others have 



286 Man and the Divine Order 

read a dogmatic treatise, such as Deussen's Ele- 
ments of Metaphysics, which is merely an exposi- 
tion of one type of philosophy. Still others have 
read Spencer, or a few other authors who finally 
dismiss certain problems as insoluble, then drop 
philosophy as impossible, not knowing that such 
writers are entirely antiquated. Spencer's word 
11 unknowable" has played an incalculable amount 
of mischief among those who have deemed it a 
wisely chosen word. The authority of scientific 
men like Huxley and Clifford is often taken to be 
conclusive by those who have never even read a 
thorough-going history of philosophy. 

Again, others know Western philosophy only as 
it is depreciatively referred to by theosophists, 
who set up the enormous claim that Greek philo- 
sophy was borrowed from the Orient Such claims 
are based — to use the words of Windelband — 
upon the ' ' transmutation of analogies into causal 
relations." To show the inadequacies of such 
a view, it is only necessary to refer to Mrs. Besant's 
Ancient Wisdom, where Western thought is only 
treated in so far as it supports the theosophical 
idea, where dogmatism is substituted for reason- 
ing, and where the scholarship is so inaccurate 
that the most famous and characteristic saying of 
Heracleitus is attributed to Anaximander. That 
Greek philosophy, to be understood, must be 
studied apart from Oriental or theosophical pre- 



Philosophy 287 

dilections every one will admit who really knows 
anything about the history of the attempt to 
trace that philosophy to Oriental sources. 

The overcoming of prejudice is, then, the start- 
ing-point in all philosophy. To understand phi- 
losophy is to be thorough ; and no one is thorough 
who is either dogmatic or prejudiced. A becom- 
ing modesty has always been a characteristic of 
philosophers, with a few exceptions. 

Another cause for misunderstanding is the 
sudden and hasty decision at which some people 
arrive, namely, that nothing can be known con- 
cerning reality. Philosophy is supposed to be 
merely a breeder of doubts : therefore, one is ad- 
vised to have nothing to do with it. But the 
faithful student of philosophy knows that negative 
results are always the most productive ; that in the 
data of agnosticism lu k the essentials of a posi- 
tive, constructive faith. 

And here is where so many fail. They do not 
study philosophy long enough to understand the 
method which has been in vogue since the days 
of Socrates. All other people may be credulous 
if they will : it is the philosopher's ideal to doubt 
as long as he can, — even then to wait for new 
hypotheses to suggest themselves. 

Some of the philosophical systems are like a 
house which is complete except that certain 
prominent features are rather disproportionate. 



288 Man and the Divine Order 

The rabble admires such a house, but the archi- 
tect sees its ugliness. The believing many may 
admire the philosophical system, but the one man 
in a million who understands it discovers a defect. 
He calls attention to this, and superficial minds 
think the philosopher has failed. But no judg- 
ment could be more unfair. It is the true scep- 
tic's place to emphasise the defect, that later 
thinkers may correct it ; for the philosopher must 
be as keenly alive to error as he is zealous in the 
pursuit of truth. How far from knowledge of 
the law of human evolution is that man who de- 
clares of any system or of any book, " There are 
no errors in it: it is infallible." It may be said 
unqualifiedly, even of the Bible, that no book may 
be truly understood until its errors are known. 
Yet it was only a few decades ago that even the 
possibility of Biblical error was entertained. 

The negative method has nearly always been 
employed in philosophy, hence the enormously 
rich results of the ages of philosophic thought. 
But philosophy has come into disrepute with 
some just on account of its negative dialectic. 
Everybody has heard of the scholastic disputes 
concerning the number of angels that can stand 
on the point of a needle, or the age-long discussion 
of Nominalism versus Realism; and this is what 
philosophy is supposed to be. But, as HofTding 
says, ''Everything philosophical is instructive"; 



Philosophy 289 

and even these apparently barren disputations led 
to valuable results, and scholasticism is far from 
being synonymous with philosophy. It was schol- 
asticism which furnished "the other fellow" in the 
argumentative growth of the philosophy of the 
Renaissance, out of which modern science has 
sprung. Philosophy always flourishes best when 
it has an able antagonist. It is not philosophy 
which is the doctrine to be scorned during those 
formative ages ; it is the crabbed theology which 
burned Bruno at the stake, compelled Galileo to 
recant, and made it so difficult for Campanella, 
Descartes, and their contemporaries to philoso- 
phise. No one will ever know how much wisdom 
the Church thus suppressed. 

Not too much philosophy, but not enough, — that 
is always the trouble. The Church to-day is be- 
hind the times largely because it is philosophically 
immature : the only way to outwit modern scien- 
tific agnosticism is to be more fundamental than 
modern science. 

Again, literary writers throw philosophy into 

discredit by superficial references to certain 

schools. There are many errors in works on 

literature and history which refer, in passing, 

to philosophy. But to know what the Stoics 

and Epicureans, for example, really were, you 

must consult a German history of philosophy or 

read the originals themselves. What history tells 
19 



290 Man and the Divine Order 

about is too apt to be the degenerate period of 
Greek philosophy. The best historians of Greece, 
however, are a noteworthy exception. 

Generally speaking, it requires a philosopher to 
understand a philosopher, as a poet must trans- 
late a poet. Barren results there may be in phi- 
losophy, tomes and tomes of dry dialectic. But 
all this ceases to be barren and dry after a time. 
In philosophy, as in no other department of 
human knowledge, there is a fitness in time. A 
book that is unintelligible to-day may be food for 
the soul a few years hence. 

But the chief criticism made by a certain class 
of minds is that philosophy is impractical. We 
admit the justice of this criticism, in part ; and we 
have already noted a reason for it, namely, the di- 
vorce of philosophy from the concrete. Yet all 
the doctrines that have been classified as ' ' practi- 
cal ' ' have played a part in the history of philoso- 
phy. There is a wealth of practical wisdom in every 
genuine philosophy, although the philosopher is 
usually too busy to give adequate attention to 
it. The real system-maker probably would not 
succeed as well if he pursued truth from two mo- 
tives. The best work in philosophy has always 
been done when it has been kept up on the high 
level of metaphysics. When philosophy became 
largely practical, as among the Stoics, it began to 
degenerate metaphysically. The ideal philosopher 



Philosophy 291 

is he who first founds his system for truth's sake, 
then enjoys years of leisure, during which he may 
gradually put his system into practical relations. 

We must, therefore, constantly bear in mind 
that philosophy is systematised knowledge con- 
cerning the universe as a whole, a theory of the 
origin, nature, and destiny of things in all depart- 
ments, not merely in one domain, of experience. 
It is concerned with ultimate principles, enduring 
characteristics, persistent forces, as contrasted 
with the ephemeral, the transient, or merely ap- 
parent. It boldly investigates the illusions of 
sense, and seeks final truth about life, universal 
reason, the profoundest significance. It is no- 
thing if not profound ; and one begins to be philo- 
sophical when one begins to be profound, mature, 
thorough. 

The history of philosophy, therefore, begins with 
the dawning of manhood in the development of 
the race, and flourishes only among those nations 
where reason is the criterion. The ages of myth 
and superstition are of great interest from other 
points of view, but possess little value for phi- 
losophy, since they are ages of judgment from the 
appearance, ages of credulity. 

In a sense, man's first thoughts about the uni- 
verse were philosophical; for they were endeav- 
ours to find the ultimate causes of things. But 
philosophy properly begins when man ceases to 



292 Man and the Divine Order 

regard the universe as the theatre of all kinds of 
warring, capricious, and miracle-working powers, 
and looks upon it as a system. 

The growth of philosophy proceeds by various 
stages, as man discovers new aspects in the system 
of the world. Conspicuous among these epoch- 
making discoveries are the following : 

(1) The discovery of natural law. 

(2) The law of evolution. 

(3) The finding of self. 

(4) The existence of duty. 

(5) The discovery of society. 

In Greece, philosophy grew out of the life of 
the people, and became as many-sided and beauti- 
ful as their artistic temperaments. To Greece, 
then, we turn in order to discover the beginnings 
of philosophy. By tracing its history, we dis- 
cover the elements of philosophy as they naturally 
suggest themselves to the human mind. Only in 
this way is it possible to understand the multi- 
plicity and profundity of those elements of phi- 
losophical thought which to-day constitute our 
reasoned faith concerning the universe. 

Greek philosophy began with a study of the 
world of nature, and was inspired by observation 
of the phenomena of change. The mythical 
deities with which the poets had peopled nature 
no longer satisfied the demands of thought. The 
Greek still stood awe-inspired before the marvel- 



Philosophy 293 

lous spectacle of the constant mutation which in all 
ages has called forth the wonder and admiration 
of men. The deities were not deemed adequate 
causes of this unceasing flux; for they, too, were 
creatures of change, and not always harmonious. 

It is natural that the ultimate reality of things, 
the basis of change, should first be described in 
physical terms; for nature is physical, and man 
sought natural as opposed to mythological causes. 
It was not until long afterwards that philosophers 
began to study mind as a cause, — to make man 
himself an object of study. 

The history of thought from the days of the 
Ionian physicists to the present is thus a record 
of the varying points of view which each of us 
naturally assumes as we pass from the childlike 
stage of uncritical belief in experience, as given, to 
that sublime insight in which the soul intuitively 
beholds the divine order. It is this history which 
best reveals the errors and snares into which we 
are likely to fall, as well as the correctives which 
point the way of escape. 

One of these snares is the doctrine that the in- 
tellect cannot know ultimate truth, that spiritual 
things must be spiritually discerned. The latter 
statement is doubtless true, in its special sphere. 
But that does not prove that the intellect may 
not then follow in the footsteps of the Spirit and 
chronicle the laws of its gracious revelations. 



294 Man and the Divine Order 

The intuitive person who has beheld the beati- 
fic vision receives no sympathy except from those 
who have also stood on holy ground. It is right 
to cling to the reality of such experiences despite 
all scepticism. But when the seer meets an in- 
tellectual scholar and finds him impervious to the 
finer feelings, it by no means follows that ''the in- 
tellect cannot know spiritual truth." That same 
scholar may possess truth of equally great value, 
to which the seer is just as blind. It is as true 
that intellectual things must be intellectually dis- 
cerned as that the spiritual must be spiritually 
seen. It is a false sense of superiority which 
permits the mere seer to put himself above the 
scholar. It may be that mere uncritical mysti- 
cism is as far from ultimate truth as the unillum- 
ined intellect. The truth when we possess it will 
be found to be a mutual product, not a private 
possession. What the seers should say is that the 
intellect alone cannot know the whole truth. It 
is equally true that seership alone has no safe- 
guard against error. 

The statement is frequently made that "the in- 
tellect always leads to an abyss," — that at best it 
ends in a paradox, an inconsistency. But an in- 
tellectual abyss is simply a gap in our knowledge 
which future thought may fill. It is far too early 
to lay down the law and state that this will 
" always' ' be the case. A paradox is an imperfect 



Philosophy 295 

statement of a truth which is thus far too large 
to put in consistent form. An inconsistency is a 
temporary halting-point. It is cowardly to de- 
clare that we cannot resolve the paradoxes and 
inconsistencies. 

If it be a question of consistency, surely the 
mystic cannot cast the first stone. The substi- 
tute which he offers for the paradoxes of the 
intellect is usually far more inconsistent than the 
doctrine which he condemns. For, having con- 
cluded that the intellect cannot know truth, before 
he has yet mastered the profundities of intellect- 
ual knowledge, he neglects to be consistent even 
where it is already possible. 

Note how absurd is the statement which dis- 
credits the intellect. What is this condemnatory 
conclusion if not intellectual? How did any one 
ever arrive at the conclusion that the intellect 
cannot give us truth except by a process of judg- 
ment based on certain evidence? What state- 
ment was ever made that was not intellectual? 

What is the intellect ? It is the mental power 
whereby we represent things, experiences, that is, 
objects in general, by means of ideas viewed in 
certain relations. To see the connection between 
ideas, apprehend their law, and pass to new re- 
sults or conclusions is to reason. Reason deals 
with the data which experience has presented, and 
which it discovers by study of the presented 



296 Man and the Divine Order 

data. In a word, it is the interpretation of the 
given. 

But what more can you say of your mystical 
experience than that it is ''given"? That is, the 
real thing is immediate, felt. The moment you 
undertake to describe your experience, you pass 
from the realm of the immediate to the intel- 
lectual domain. Every idea is intellectual. The 
utmost that any mystic ever really sought to 
make clear, whatever the illusions under which he 
laboured, was to convey clear intellectual ideas. 

Whether we know it or not, all our feelings are 
bound up with interpretations of those feelings. 
No one is more theoretical than the mystic. We 
cannot sunder the spiritual from the intellectual 
consciousness. It is an imperfect psychology 
which seems to justify such separation. Further- 
more, no experience as given is adequate by it- 
self; and the moment comparison is introduced 
the intellect is employed. The fact that intuition 
is immediate does not mean that it is wholly new 
and independent. There is no intuition which 
immediately and fully tells us what reality is, or 
even what the self is, what the world is. Our 
knowledge is largely interpretative ; it is based on 
years of careful comparison of illusory and con- 
flicting experiences. 

Nor is any man, whatever his claims, led or 
even convinced by feeling or seership alone. We 



Philosophy 297 

are sometimes won over by feeling, sometimes by 
reason. The feeling may be contrary to reason, 
and the reason in conflict with feeling. It is only 
after long experience that we see the true unity of 
intuition and reason. To grasp this unity we 
must both feel the Spirit and know the law. This 
is the knowledge which gives true power. Only 
when we thus know can we be calm when all 
appearances indicate a storm. "The intellect 
builds the world," says Emerson, " and is the key 
to all it contains." The divine order is the divine 
reason, and reason in man must understand that 
order. 

No one who has read deeply in Plato is ever 
likely to subordinate reason. Without exception, 
it may be said that those who depreciate the 
power and place of reason betray their own in- 
tellectual deficiencies. As matter of fact, the en- 
tire misunderstanding is due to the oversight of a 
certain fundamental distinction, that is, the con- 
nection between feeling and thought, primary and 
secondary experience. All experience is primar- 
ily an affair of sentiency, that is, it is immediately 
given. To exist is to feel, to come into contact 
with sensations of touch, sight, sound, and the 
rest ; the feeling of resistance, the sense of pleas- 
ure and pain. But, in another sense, to exist is 
to think. That is, man not only feels pleasure 
and pain, and other sensations, but he is eager to 



298 Man and the Divine Order 

describe and communicate his feelings. Accord- 
ingly, he recasts feeling in terms of thought. 
Feeling is direct, thought is indirect. There is 
first sensation, then the thought which interprets 
it and makes a perception of it. Perception in 
turn becomes conception, and conception leads the 
way to all kinds of theory and speculation. 

Now, no one who grasps the subject will deny 
that it is sentiency which immediately acquaints 
us with reality. In a profound sense reality is feel- 
ing, and feeling can never be deprived of its im- 
portance. But who is content simply to feel? 
Who is there that possesses feeling even in the 
simplest form, apart from all intellectual inter- 
pretation of it? When the last word has been 
said in favour of feeling, the question arises, Is 
feeling adequate? Does it reveal its own prin- 
ciple of organisation, the standard by which to 
rid it of illusion? Clearly it does not. Hence, 
reason, although it does not create its subject- 
matter, and is, strictly speaking, only an inter- 
preter of immediate experience in all its forms, is 
in a sense the most important function in man. 

It may still be true that allowance must be 
made for immediacy as somehow real in a way 
known only to the one who feels it. The seer is 
doubtless justified in saying that to know what 
the spiritual vision is you must behold it. The 
musician may still say, rightly, that music has a 



Philosophy 299 

domain of its own. No philosopher would be- 
grudge the poet his world of the imagination. 
But when all the poets and prophets have won 
every point for which they contend and freely 
set forth their visions in symbolical forms, there 
is still room for the philosopher in the highest 
realm of all. For the philosopher comes last and 
surveys the whole field, compares the visions, 
studies the symbols, puts together the fragments. 
In the last analysis he finds that large allowance 
must be made for immediacy and for individuality. 
Yet in a sense the interpretation of the sublimest 
vision of the mystic is no more difficult than the 
rationalisation of the commonest feeling. The 
general principles are the same. The mystical 
experience, if true, presents nothing which you 
and I cannot verify. Every feeling, all experience 
is a miracle. It must be accepted as a fact, a 
gift of our precious life in this wonderful universe. 
But granted the feeling, we are then able to take 
a step farther and lift it to the plane of reason. 

The most critically rational philosophy must be 
a confession that reality is first felt before it is 
thought about, that what it aims to interpret is 
just that immediate experience which every one 
may' turn to and verify as real. But it is reason 
that shows what is real in the domain of feeling. 
If feeling is real, thought is real too. If we are 
to know what is ultimately real we must take 



3oo Man and the Divine Order 

account of both feeling and thought. For just as 
reason reacts upon feeling and shows that feeling 
is unable to account for itself, so feeling in turn 
criticises thought and declares it to be inadequate. 
Both feeling and thought are ultimate elements of 
our experience. No analysis can resolve the one 
absolutely into the other. Our philosophy must 
be broad enough to include the uniqueness of feel- 
ing and the creative power of thought. Philo- 
sophy is both descriptive and suggestive, both 
interpretative and poetical. No philosophy is 
ultimately satisfactory which is untrue to spirit- 
ual immediacy. Yet no philosophy is universal 
which is not, through and through, the product of 
reconstructive reason. 



CHAPTER XIII 

Berkeley's idealism 

NO error is more common in popular philo- 
sophy than the misinterpretation of idealism. 
This term is very readily understood when ap- 
plied to practical or religious ideals. But, philo- 
sophically, it is supposed to mean a vague, airy 
theory, entirely divorced from common sense. In 
fact, it is taken to mean the denial of the existence 
of nature. Accordingly, it is supposed to be an 
easy refutation of the theory to strike a table or 
a post, and thereby prove that matter exists. 

This erroneous interpretation has largely arisen 
out of the misunderstanding of Berkeley. Doc- 
trines which denied the existence of matter have 
indeed been current. Berkeley has been quoted 
in substantiation of these beliefs, and thus the 
erroneous ideas have spread. But Berkeley held 
no such view. He foresaw and repudiated such 
an interpretation. Let us, then, without under- 
taking a minute study of Berkeley's system, ex- 
amine his idealism with a view to removing this 
misunderstanding from the noblest theory of, 
nature that has ever been held. 

301 



302 Man and the Divine Order 

The philosophy of this great thinker, widely 
esteemed as one of the sanest and profoundest 
reasoners who ever lived, must first of all be 
understood in the light of philosophical history. 
When Berkeley published his volumes, the theory 
of evolution and the conception of nature as a 
living thing, had not yet been promulgated. Born 
in 1684, Berkeley came immediately after an 
epoch in which nature had come to be regarded as 
a hard-and-fast mechanism, described and inter- 
preted in terms of mathematics, necessity, rigidly 
exact causation. If studied at all in connection 
with consciousness, matter was commonly re- 
garded as sharply contrasted with mind. In fact, 
it was in this period that the modern doctrine of 
the parallelism of mind and matter began to take 
shape. Descartes had declared that mind and 
body are "wholly distinct/' 1 and that the body 
obeys mechanical laws independently of the world 
of consciousness. Spinoza went farther and de- 
clared that there is complete, universal parallelism 
between thought and extension, so that the order 
and connection of ideas is the same as the order 
and connection of things. But he held that there 
is absolutely no causal connection between mind 
and body. 2 Then, in due course, came Locke, 
with his theory that all our knowledge arises from 
sensation and reflection. Locke held that the 

1 Discourse on Method, Part IV. 2 Ethics, Part II. 



Berkeley's Idealism 303 

primary qualities of things, that is, solidity, ex- 
tension, figure, motion, and the rest, exist in the 
world about us, apart from all perception. The 
secondary qualities, such as colour, taste, light, 
heat, cold, pleasure, and pain, he traced to our 
own perceptions. 1 But there must then be a sub- 
stratum of some sort as the basis of the primary 
qualities and the motions which are copied or 
represented in human consciousness. What this 
independent substratum was, Locke was unable to 
say. At best it was a sort of abstraction for pur- 
poses of thought. In general, our ideas were sup- 
posed to conform to material conditions, though 
Locke did not decide in favour of materialism, or 
any other definite theory. 

The philosophy of Berkeley was a vigorous re- 
action from many of the doctrines of his predeces- 
sors, particularly the theory of Locke in regard 
to substance. Berkeley regarded this unknown 
material substratum as a figment of the mind. 
He saw no reason why we should attribute to an 
unknown somewhat the qualities and relations 
which we perceive. He knew nothing of a me- 
chanical system of nature operating apart from, 
and entirely unlike, the mind. He did not con- 
ceive of two sets of events, the one exclusively 
mental, the other entirely physical, moving along 
independently of each other. Nor did he have 

1 Essay, Bk. II., ix. 



304 Man and the Divine Order 

anything to say about a rigidly mechanical " sub- 
stance." From his point of view there is but one 
substance, namely, Spirit, one source of power, 
one real cause. Why, then, should thought take 
this roundabout course and conjure up unknown 
entities? Why should it create chasms between 
that which is known in one experience ? Why not 
regard the experience which we call "nature" as 
an immediate product of God, a direct gift from 
Spirit to consciousness, and thus do away with 
the dualism of matter and spirit ? 

When we look within to discover the nature of 
experience, what we find is a mind thinking, or, 
rather, we discover that there is a steady flow of 
thoughts, and from their presence we learn that 
there is a perceiver of them. Some of these men- 
tal states reveal a certain regularity, others clearly 
come within the province of our will. Everybody 
can make these simple discoveries, and careful 
thinking will show that they are very profound. 
There is no surer evidence of their truth than the 
verification which each man may make for him- 
self. Berkeley appeals to his readers to make 
these empirical tests. In setting forth his theory 
of matter he maintained that he was expounding 
no more than any thoughtful person would accept 
as common sense. For every one is primarily 
aware of ideas, and it is just these familiar objects 
of consciousness which constitute the entire store 



Berkeley's Idealism 3°5 

of our experience. Fundamentally, as well as 
superficially, our life is a life of mind, and we are 
unable to describe or conceive of the simplest or 
the greatest experience in any other than mental 
terms. Life is mental, is not alone describable as 
mental. Reality is actually present to the mind ; 
it is not distantly " represented" or copied in our 
consciousness. What you mean when you say 
there is a tree yonder is that you have certain 
perceptions of distance, size, colour, and the like. 
There is no more reason to single out certain quali- 
ties and declare that they belong to the " object 
in itself ' ' than to pick out the aches and pains we 
feel and attribute them to things -in-themselves. 
By a very profound and careful analysis Berkeley 
showed in one of his earliest books that even the 
perception of distance is acquired by gradual per- 
ceptual experience. A man born blind and sud- 
denly restored to sight would have no idea of 
distance. He might acquire such an idea and 
learn to govern his actions accordingly. But all 
our acquirements are developments of and within 
our experience, which is always mental. 

This, then, is Berkeley's position. Sensations 
are ideas in our minds. They present various 
relations which we are able progressively to under- 
stand. But we have no ground for the assump- 
tion that what we perceive and declare to be 
"outside" of us is something unlike our ideas. 



306 Man and the Divine Order 

There are not two tables, the one of oak, entirely 
unlike our perceptions of the table as hard, ex- 
tended, and of a certain colour ; and the other, a 
mental representation of the material table. The 
table of our perception is the real table. We 
know the table as a group of ideas, immediately 
present in consciousness, and, however differently 
an omniscient Mind might know that table, it 
would still be akin to the act of knowledge, not 
an independent " material" table. 

In his earliest writing, the Commonplace Book, 
in which Berkeley experimentally put down his 
thoughts on this subject, wondering how he 
should present them to the critical world, he ex- 
plicitly states that to exist is to be perceived or 
to perceive. There is no reason to suppose the 
existence of a world apart from all percipient 
beings. We have no experience of any such 
world, nor are we called upon to postulate its ex- 
istence in order to account for this world. The 
supposition of the reality of matter as some- 
thing existing beyond experience of the only 
kind we know, is one of those abstractions which 
have for ages hampered human thought. Such 
abstractions are mere generalities. When we 
analyse experience to see what it means, we find 
that it does not consist of generalities, but of con- 
crete particulars; and the only particulars with 
which we are acquainted are ideas — our notions 



Berkeley's Idealism 3°7 

of the self with its thoughts and activities. To 
account for these, our real experiences, what we 
need is not an independently existing "matter," 
but the intelligence and mind of God. The regu- 
lar sequence of the constant manifestation of God 
— that is the true basis of the wonderful order of 
our experience. All power, life, causality, comes 
directly from Him. All percipient beings are 
immediately and continuously related to Him. 
Nature, law, change, have neither existence nor 
significance apart from His omnipresent life. Nor 
have we any existence that is wholly separate 
from His will and rational providence, His life and 
wisdom. And the type of our life with God we 
already know, namely, the life of ideas. 

Even if there be no unthinking substance exist- 
ing apart from our minds, some might suppose 
that another sort of independent existence might 
lie beyond consciousness. But Berkeley also dis- 
poses of this view : 

Say you, there might be a thinking Substance — 
something unknown — which perceives, and supports, 
and ties together the ideas. Say I, make it appear 
there is any need of it and you shall have it from me. 
I care not to take away anything I can see the least 
reason to think should exist. 1 

Thus economically logical is the clear-thinking 
Berkeley. 

1 Works, Fraser's Ed., i., 33. 



308 Man and the Divine Order 

No one who should pause to think about it 
would maintain that we know of the existence of 
things apart from sensation. Berkeley declares 
that there can be no sensation without something 
to possess it. Likewise there can be no thought 
in a thoughtless thing. 1 What we find in our ex- 
perience is sensations and thought. The sens- 
ations come from without, the thoughts from 
within. Since existence must have a basis, and 
since we are logically bound to attribute existence 
(known as perception) to that which is like it, 

it is evident that sensible things cannot exist other- 
wise than in a mind or spirit. Whence I conclude 
[says Berkeley], not that they have no real existence 
distinct from being perceived by me, but that there 
must be some other Mind wherein they exist. As sure, 
therefore, as the sensible world really exists, so sure 
is there an infinite, omnipresent Spirit who contains 
and supports all. 2 

Berkeley does not, then, say that our sensations 
arise from our own minds simply. When I leave 
my study, my desk is still existent there ; for its 
ultimate elements had no merely human origin. 
By ''existence" I am to understand capability of 
being perceived. If a spirit were present in my 
study, the spirit would see my desk ; that is, cer- 
tain relations would be impressed on the spirit's 

1 Works, i., 89. 2 Ibid., i., 424. 



Berkeley's Idealism 3°9 

consciousness in regular order, which he would 
understand. A very simple sensation may sug- 
gest a wealth of other sensations to the mind. If, 
for example, I stand before the Jungfrau, looking 
up at the ice-clad height from the hot valley, 
various ideas are brought before my mind which 
suggest what I might feel were I present on the 
Jungfrau. But I am not to suppose that these 
sensations which I might feel are intelligible apart 
from a mind feeling them. I think of them only 
because I have previously felt or heard of such 
sensations. In the same way I distinguish the 
difference in space between my position and the 
summit of the mountain because previous ex- 
perience has taught or given me the idea of 
externality. 

Berkeley's point of view is precisely the one 
which any reasoning person would hold who 
should discover the great and fundamental truth 
that all we know is states of consciousness, and 
that, since these facts of consciousness are in large 
part involuntarily given and systematically per- 
ceived, they must have a ground or origin apart 
from our own whims, caprices, and volitions. 

Let us hear further from Berkeley himself in 
confirmation of the above : 

The table I write on I say exists, that is, I see and 
feel it ; and if I were out of my study I should say it 



3io Man and the Divine Order 

existed — meaning, thereby, that if I was in my study 
I might perceive it, or that some other spirit actually 
does perceive it. 1 . . . By the principles pre- 
mised we are not deprived of any one thing in nature. 
Whatever we see, feel, hear, or any wise conceive or 
understand, remains as secure as ever, and is as real 
as ever. There is a rerum natura, and the distinction 
between realities and chimeras retains its full force. 
. . . I do not argue against the existence of any 
one thing that we can apprehend either by sense or 
reflection. That the things I see with my eyes and 
touch with my hands do exist, really exist, I make 
not the least question. ... If any man thinks 
this detracts from the reality of things, he is very far 
from understanding what hath been premised in the 
plainest terms I could think of . . . . In the sense 
here given of reality, it is evident that every vegetable, 
star, mineral, and in general each part of the mundane 
system, is as much a real being by our principles as by 
any other. Whether others mean anything different 
by the term reality from what I do, I entreat them to 
look into their own thoughts and see. 2 

If we follow the light of reason, we shall, from the 
constant, uniform method of our sensations, collect the 
goodness and wisdom of the Spirit who excites them 
in our minds ; but this is all that I can see reasonably 
concluded from thence. To me, I say, it is evident 
that the being of a Spirit infinitely wise, good, and 
powerful is abundantly sufficient to explain all the 

1 Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, 
§3- 2 Ibid., \\ 34~3 6 - 



Berkeley's Idealism 311 

appearances of nature. But as for inert, senseless 
Matter, nothing that I perceive has any the least con- 
nection with it, or leads to the thoughts of it. 1 . . . 
The term thing, in contradistinction to idea, is gener- 
ally supposed to denote somewhat existing without 
the mind. . . . Since, therefore, the objects of 
sense exist only in the mind, and are withal thought 
less and inactive, I chose to mark them by the word 
idea, which implies those properties. . . . That 
what I see, hear, and feel, doth exist, — that is to say, 
is perceived by me — I no more doubt than I do of my 
own being. 2 

There is not any other substance than spirit, or 
that which perceives. ... A spirit is one sim- 
ple, undivided, active being — as it perceives ideas, it 
is called Understanding, and, as it produces, it is called 
the Will.*. 

Berkeley shows that the entire difficulty has 
arisen from the supposition of a twofold existence 
of the objects of sense: namely (1), intelligible, 
or in the mind ; and (2) real, or without the mind. 
Berkeley traces the reality directly to Spirit, and 
thus completely undermines not only the basis of 
dualism, but of scepticism. For the root of scep- 
ticism is this : 

So long as men thought that real things subsisted 
without the mind, and that their knowledge was only 

1 Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, 
§ 72. 2 Ibid. U 39, 40. 3 Ibid. \ 27. 



3i2 Man and the Divine Order 

so far forth real as it was conformable to real things, it 
follows they could not be certain that they had any 
real knowledge at all. 1 

In Berkeley's idealism there is no such separa- 
tion between noumena and phenomena. Our 
minds lie open to the being of God. We become 
aware of His existence by observing the develop- 
ments of our conscious experience. We learn our 
existence by noting what we do as perceiving, 
thinking, volitional beings ; and we know, through 
reason, that there are other finite spirits. Thus 
the world is through and through a spiritual ex- 
perience; we are all closely united in the life of 
God ; the true world is the world of ideas, and we 
need no longer fear the encroachments of atheism, 
materialism, or philosophic doubt, since these have 
been proved to be utterly baseless and irrational. 

As if to make assurance doubly sure, Berkeley 
sets forth his theory in the form of three dialogues 
in which "Hylas," who represents the ordinary 
unthinking view regarding matter, contends point 
by point for the independent existence of matter. 
"Philonous," his opponent, represents Berkeley's 
great insight, and steadily exposes the errors of 
the popular view until, finally, Hylas is compelled 
to acknowledge his defeat as follows : 

I must needs own, Philonous, nothing seems to 

1 Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, 
§86. 



Berkeley's Idealism 3*3 

have kept me from agreeing with you more than 
somehow mistaking the question. In denying Matter, 
at first glimpse I am tempted to imagine you deny 
the things we see and feel: but, upon reflection, find 
there is no ground for it. What think you, therefore, 
of retaining the name Matter, and applying it to sens- 
ible things. This may be done without any change 
in your sentiments. ... I freely own there is no 
other substance, in a strict sense, than Spirit. But I 
have been so long accustomed to the term Matter that 
I know not how to part with it. To say there is no 
Matter in the world is still shocking to me. . . . 
If by Matter is meant some sensible thing, whose 
existence consists in being perceived, then there is 
Matter. This distinction gives it quite another turn; 
and men will come into your notions with small diffi- 
culty. . . . I have been a long time distrusting 
my senses; methought I saw things by a dim light, 
and through false glasses. Now the glasses are re- 
moved, and a new light breaks in upon my under- 
standing. I am clearly convinced that I see things in 
their native forms, and am no longer in pain about 
their unknown natures or absolute existence. 

The misunderstanding at last removed, one is 
prepared to follow Berkeley intelligently when 
he characterises the world of nature as a " divine 
visual language." He rejects the mechanical 
theory because it explains nothing, and simply tab- 
ulates laws, and sets forth the general rules and 
method of motion. Berkeley does not doubt the 



3H Man and the Divine Order 

principles and theorems of the sciences. He be- 
lieves as profoundly as the most precise physicist 
in the regular course of nature, but is not satisfied 
with any theory which fails to account for the 
real causal efficiency in things : 

We cannot [he says] make even one step in ac- 
counting for the phenomena, without admitting the 
immediate presence and immediate action of an in- 
corporeal Agent, who connects, moves, and disposes 
all things according to such rules, and for such pur- 
poses, as seem good to Him. 1 . . . We know a 
thing when we understand it, and we understand it 
when we can interpret or tell what it signifies. Strictly 
the Sense knows nothing. We perceive, indeed, 
sounds by hearing and characters by sight. But we 
are not therefore said to understand them. 
Instruments, occasions, and signs occur in, or rather 
make up, the whole visible Course of Nature. These, 
being no agents themselves, are under the direction 
of One Agent, concerting all for one end, the supreme 
good. . . . Sense and Experience acquaint us 
with the course and analogy of appearance or natural 
effects. Thought, Reason, Intellect introduce us into 
the knowledge of their causes. 2 

Berkeley is careful to discriminate between 
pantheistic systems and his own conception of the 
omnipresent Spirit. 

1 Siris, I 237. 2 Ibid., U 253, 258, 264. 



Berkeley's Idealism 3 X 5 

Comprehending God and the creatures in one gen- 
eral notion [he says, in his most mature work *], we 
may say that all things together make one universe, 
or to irav. But if we should say that all things 
make one God — this would be an erroneous notion 
of God. 

Berkeley's system is not, then, mystical, but is 
a clear-cut theory of the relationships of finite 
spirits and the Supreme Spirit, an inspiring theory 
of the divine order. One should therefore avoid 
attributing to him any of the obscure doctrines 
which now pass current. Berkeley was careful to 
distinguish between human whims and desires on 
the one hand, and the law, order, system of "the 
divine visual language" on the other. He was 
very far from attributing the qualities of sense to 
human thought. It would not be correct to con- 
clude from his premises that " all is mind," as that 
expression is now used. Berkeley's idealism is an 
idealism of the Spirit, not an idealism of egoistic, 
affirmative thought. He did not counsel men to 
build their own world from within. Nor did he 
try to devise a fine-spun metaphysic of the ro- 
mantic type. He neither stated, nor did he 
believe, that the world of nature is an "illusion" 
or "delusion." The world for him was not due 
to a "fall," nor did it spring from "Maya." It 
would have seemed the most absurd nonsense to 

1 Siris. 



3*6 Man and the Divine Order 

him to declare that this fair world of ours sprang 
from ignorance. He neither denied distinctions 
nor blurred differences. He took the marvellously 
beautiful divine order as he found it and sought 
to interpret it. To him the divine order was a 
"City of God," a relationship of finite spirits and 
the father Spirit. His system was essentially 
pluralistic, rather than monistic, a clearly con- 
ceived spiritual idealism. Accordingly, our final 
word must be: Understand Berkeley philosoph- 
ically if you would really know him. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE ETERNAL ORDER 

NO comment on the world at large is more fre- 
quently heard than the statement that it 
is a realm of illusions. We hear about the illu- 
sions of the senses, the illusions of pleasure, hope, 
and fancy ; we are told that existence holds much 
that is a deceit and a snare. The pleasures of 
wealth are fleeting, society is hollow and super- 
ficial, human beings are unstable, friendships are 
fickle, and marriage is a lottery. Thus warnings 
greet our ears on every hand. Even love is in- 
cluded in the general condemnation, and a man is 
fortunate if he can retain any portion of his faith 
in humanity and life. For such thoughts about 
the world quickly lead to pessimism, and pessi- 
mism leads as easily into agnosticism. 

There is a still more disheartening condemna- 
tion of the world, a point of view which ap- 
parently has even more evidence in its favour 
than this popular pessimism. Possibly this world 
is not only a deceit, so this deeper scepticism 
says, but the whole of life may be a dream. No 

317 



318 Man and the Divine Order 

characteristic of metaphysical treatises is more be- 
numbing than the constant use of terms which 
imply this most profound doubt. The words " ap- 
pearance," "illusion," "seems," and "seeming" 
haunt nearly every page. Nothing is, but only 
"seems" to be real. There is only seeming evo- 
lution, seeming individuality, seeming freedom. 
The mind is fed upon these husks until it is almost 
in despair of real food. Nothing is, but only ap- 
pears to be. The mind seems to study metaphys- 
ics and appears to contemplate somewhat. But 
no : it is only a scheme of shadows depending upon 
shadows, and these only appear to be cast. The 
thought naturally follows that the entire world 
may only be a " seeming" world, a shadow, which 
the sun of another sphere shall dispel. The illu- 
sions of our every -day life may be only the fore- 
ground of our dream; the real illusion may be 
that we exist at all as we seem now to live. 

Now, no one contends that the doubt that 
life is real is groundless. Our acquaintance with 
illusion is too frequent to permit the belief that 
there are no illusions. It is no mere figure of 
speech which compares our life to a dream. We 
are possessed by the belief that this life is not all. 
We are assured that the present existence is only 
the lowest round in a series of spiritual experiences 
(not incarnations) . In this life we are beginning 
to know that we are spiritual beings ; we are open- 



The Eternal Order 319 

ing our spiritual eyes and contemplating the first 
visions from "on high." Sometime we shall be 
changed; somewhere we shall pursue a different 
kind of career. No one can persuade us either 
that death ends all, or that progress ceases with 
the great awakening. It is well constantly to 
call attention to this profound conviction. 

One of the commonest experiences in human 
life is the discovery that things are not what they 
seem. Far back in infancy, man awakened to this 
fact when he fruitlessly reached for a distant 
object apparently spread before him on a tangible 
plane. Throughout life illusion after illusion is 
dispelled. Each new type of experience is accom- 
panied by fresh illusions, and the more complex 
and lofty the experience the more expert must the 
participant become. 

In no domain are the deceptions more alluring 
than in the realm of feeling. In fact, it is here 
that the real contest with illusion begins. It is 
commonplace to state that the affections must be 
subjected to various tests, such as comparison, 
time, distance, the experiences of others, and the 
criteria of reason. It may be stated as a general 
axiom that no feeling is either an intelligible or a 
safe guide by itself, that is, as given. Let us re- 
peat that, although our acquaintance with reality 
begins with feeling, that is, immediacy in some 
form, yet what we understand by reality is not 



320 Man and the Divine Order 

the presented feeling, but what examination has 
shown feeling to be. 

The infant tries to grasp the moon and fails. 
The same little ambitious hand is stretched forth 
to seize a plaything and is successful. Finally, 
by repeated comparison, the child understands 
what space signifies. The affectional experience 
likewise becomes intelligible by repeated contrast. 
It is not a mass of feeling, but knowledge, ac- 
quaintance with the world, which shows us how 
to discern the realities of feeling. Not the one 
who has had the greatest amount of feeling-ex- 
perience, but the one who has thought most about 
his experience is the true guide. We quote sen- 
timents and intuitions as authorities, as if we 
were able to feel the reality of life at first hanci. 
But profounder analysis reveals the fact that com- 
parison of experiences, the application of rational 
tests, really plays a greater part in our adjustment 
to the world than any other phase of our mental 
life. 

Yet every true lover of wisdom must protest 
against that form of philosophy which seeks to 
erect a system on the negative conclusions drawn 
from this great conviction. All who are ac- 
quainted with the religio-philosophical systems of 
India know that the characterisation of our pre- 
sent life as illusory leads to the profoundest kind 
of pessimism; for a sort of despair follows the 



The Eternal Order 321 

discovery that this life is hid behind a veil. There 
is a vain attempt to account for the dream: it 
could not have sprung from " Brahman," — the 
" One without a second," — therefore it must have 
originated in our ignorance. But ignorance is it- 
self an illusion; we are not the individuals we 
seem to be. It is only the desire to live which 
apparently produces what seems to be a world. 
The only escape is by freedom from it all in the 
"Absolute." Consequently there is a recoil from 
natural existence, a recoil which inevitably leads 
to the condemnation of everything external ; and 
finally points to the ascetic or hermit life as the 
only way of escape from the burdens of sense- 
perception. 

Of course, we in the Western world will not carry 
this doctrine to such excess, yet the seeds of this 
theory have been sown here, and some of these 
same conclusions follow from the statements of 
popular metaphysical reasoners. It is important 
to note that there is a fatal flaw in reasoning when 
this conclusion follows. The grandeur and beauty 
of temporal life are lost sight of, and the future is 
meditated upon as if that alone were good. But 
the future seems not half so attractive when 
viewed as a sort of soothing, conciliatory world, 
where one is treated sweetly because life here 
was so bitter. True philosophy faces just this 
world of alleged illusion, distinguishes between the 



322 Man and the Divine Order 

appearances of things and their reality. Admit- 
ting that things are not wholly what they seem, it 
persistently searches for the sources of illusion, 
that it may eliminate these and know the real from 
the apparent. It classifies that judgment as super- 
ficial which condemns the whole world, because, 
forsooth, certain of its phenomena have been 
found deceptive. To describe a thing as an " il- 
lusion," an " appearance," or " shadow," is not to 
account for it, but simply to give it a new name. 
Philosophy seeks to explain, not to name, and the 
presupposition is that everything that exists not 
only has a reason for being, but an intelligible 
basis of existence. The hollo west and shallowest 
illusion must be an illusion of something: every 
shadow is cast by something. Let us, then, probe 
it to its foundation, not be content with the dull 
generalisation that "our senses deceive us," or 
that we are but dreamers of a dream. 

To say that a thing " seems" to be is ever a 
popular way of dismissing that which is misunder- 
stood. This is not half so honest as to call the 
whole universe an "x." Apparently it is a pro- 
found generalisation, one which dazzles the mind 
of the one who gives it forth ; and it awes the lis- 
tener who hears it — if he knows nothing about 
philosophy. The word ' ' seeming ' ' is even applied 
to our moral sense — for is not morality trans- 
cended when the veil is cast aside? — and God 



The Eternal Order 323 

alone is spared, though logically He ought merely 
to seem to exist, as the apparent basis of that 
which seems to appear. 

In contrast with this pseudo-philosophy I vent- 
ure to assert that everything is in some sense 
real. If we could know any one of these much- 
scorned appearances in all its relations, we should 
understand the perfect whole of the universe. 
This is very far from saying that we have merely 
to open our eyes to behold what nature is ; it is 
simply an argument for the reality of nature in 
some sense of the word. What that grade of real- 
ity is can only be seen in so far as we dismiss the 
confusing notion that nature is unreal. 

Even if our present life be largely a dream-life, 
there must be: (1) a basis for our dreams; (2) a 
reason for our dreaming ; (3) a significance in our 
dreams; (4) a reality in the self that dreams. 
All this is obviously related to reality. It is im- 
possible to conceive of anything so fancifully 
absurd that it is out of relation to reality. For 
the merest fancy is in some way psychologically 
derived from experience. The whole task of phi- 
losophy is the adjustment of appearances in rela- 
tion to reality. Whatever appears is, therefore, 
in some sense real. What appears in some meas- 
ure qualifies reality. There is no "mere appear- 
ance"; there are no unrelated dreams. The fact 
that we only partly see things as they are does not 



324 Man and the Divine Order 

prove that they do not exist. However deeply 
immersed in illusions we may be, our present life 
is as real in its way as any life could be. There is 
a reality in the storm as well as in the calm spot. 
Nature does not merely " appear " to surround me, 
it is really existent there. I may sometime view 
it differently, but it will still exist in some form. 
I do not simply seem to be separate from my fel- 
lows ; I really possess a markedly distinct life or 
individuality of my own. I do not possess ap- 
parent freedom, — I really am free ; otherwise, the 
moral order would have no meaning. 

It is not true that I merely seem to exist, — I do 
exist. The fact of my existence withstands the 
most sceptical doubts ever propounded by the 
mind of man . I am more sure of my existence than 
of anything else. Nothing is more truly a test of 
reality than my present moment of consciousness. 
If anything be illusory, therefore, it is the unre- 
lated " Absolute" or theoretical " Being' ' who is 
too abstract to bear the burden of the world. 

The chief point is that everything is real, al- 
though its full character may be only progressively 
perceived. Let us dispense with these vague re- 
ferences to illusions. Let us recollect that the 
illusion is only that of inadequate understanding. 
My senses are not false to me. They really con- 
vey knowledge of reality. If I am partly de- 
ceived by sensations, it is my erroneous thought 



The Eternal Order 3 2 5 

about them which must be corrected. There is 
every reason why I should persist in the en- 
deavour to learn what nature really is. To post- 
pone the hope of knowing reality to some future 
state would be like postponing service, putting 
off love, denying heaven. The modern man be- 
lieves that service must begin here, that love is 
for to-day, that heaven is where there is peace and 
harmony. By the same reasoning, life may be as 
real and as earnest now as at any time, in any 
place, or under any condition. 

God is present in every thought, in every feel- 
ing. That is the prime fact, and that fact refutes 
all the abstract metaphysics ever proposed. You 
will never find God until you find Him in just this 
passing moment of consciousness, in the storms 
and stress of present existence. Having found 
Him in the concrete, build your entire philosophy 
from that. If you find yourself using abstract 
terms, cross them out and substitute concrete ter- 
minology. The abstract is what remains when we 
have tried to think God out of everything. 

One need not go into a trance to find reality. 
It needs no supernatural revelation to make God 
known. Reality lives; it does not apparently 
seem to live. Reality is here ; it does not some- 
how appear to be here. Everything that exists is 
a part of the divine order ; our dreams, our visions, 
our sorrows, joys, and aspirations. God resides in 



326 Man and the Divine Order 

the minute as well as in the grand and in the 
enormous. He is a being of infinitely diversified 
character, not an abstract " Absolute." 

The future spiritual life in which we are to be 
more free, wherein we shall behold the world, as 
it were, "face to face," will probably be like a 
high school, which we cannot appreciate till we 
have graduated from the grammar school. That 
richer field of education will call out more from 
the soul. We shall undoubtedly possess greater 
powers and correct many erroneous conclusions. 
Higher types of experience will reveal higher stan- 
dards of reality. There will doubtless be a gradual 
transition into a richer life. But it by no means 
follows that the present life is unreal or lacking in 
value. Nor is the future life sundered from the 
present. The world of consciousness is immedi- 
ately related both to the present world of nature 
and to the unseen world of the immortal life. This 
world of time and space would be nothing without 
eternity as its ground. The soul dwells in eter- 
nity now, it has never dwelt apart from it, and 
never will be separate. To pass from the flesh 
life to the excarnate is simply — for the soul — to 
drop an outer garment, however the change 
may seem to the earthly observer. The soul 
has less to obstruct it; it has not "entered etern- 
ity." Nor is it transformed into an "immortal 
spirit"; it is that now. Life is continuous, for 



The Eternal Order 327 

life is one ; the life of the soul is not the life of 
the flesh. 

Man was born in ignorance of the fact that he 
is a spiritual being living in eternity, and thus he 
is able to enjoy the benefits of individual and 
social experience. Every stage in his progress is 
fraught with value. When he mistakes his body 
for himself, he is beginning to advance. There is 
a value in that experience which no other experi- 
ence could bring out as well. It is real as far as it 
goes. When he discovers his mind and speculates 
about that, man enters into new illusions, but he 
is much nearer the truth. What was true on the 
lower plane is true here also, but in a modified, 
enlarged sense. When he passes to the next stage 
man simply adds the greater truth that he is a 
soul; therefore he regards mind and body in a 
different light. Likewise with the transition be- 
yond death: more truth is added, but still the 
same soul. 

Philosophically, nature is what one thinker has 
called the "organic bond of individuals," that 
which unites us all. Nature is known through the 
activities of God on the soul ; and to draw nearer to 
nature is to draw nearer to God. Nature is real 
in the life or experience of God and in the spiritual 
life of man. The discovery of its spiritual mean- 
ing makes it in no sense less real. To argue that 
we do not know nature "in itself," apart from 



328 Man and the Divine Order 

mind, is to contend for one of the old-time ab- 
stractions; for who wants to know nature "in 
itself," that is, apart from the conditions of know- 
ing nature? There is no "nature-in -itself " ; na- 
ture has no existence apart from God — that is 
the great truth of philosophical idealism, not that 
it has no existence "apart from mind," as those 
affirm who misunderstand Berkeley and other 
idealists. 1 

The positive statement is that, through our 
cognitive organism we know the world of God's 
natural life. Our powers of knowledge are pre- 
cisely the means without which we could not 
attain the end ; God is not thwarted : He is able 
to develop in us what He obviously set out to 
develop, namely, consciousness of His natural life. 
It rests with us to remove all subjective and specu- 
lative obstacles, that we may know even as He 
would have us know. When at last all abstract 
barriers are removed, and we look out on the 
fresh green fields or the newly fallen snow, we 
realise what a burden has passed from man since 
the old days when man thought he was serving 
God by mortifying the flesh, or spending all his 
time preparing for the world to come. It is like 
being born anew ; we rejoice for the race, that now 
at last man can enjoy his natural life. And how 

1 See Chapter XIX. for a more explicit statement of the 
idealistic philosophy of the present volume. 



The Eternal Order 3 2 9 

strange it seems that man should have regarded 
any part of the beautiful body which God has 
given him as evil ! How strange, too, to talk so 
much about sin, as if God were so weak that He 
could not make a decent man ! What a vast net- 
work of illusions man has woven to keep himself 
from knowledge of life as it truly is ! 

How inspiring the thought that we live in an 
eternal present, that the Father is here now in His 
fulness, that every bit of nature, every thought is 
a channel to the divine ! We may really pause in 
peace, take time to rest and look about us at this 
glad world. For why need we hasten? What is 
there elsewhere which cannot begin now ? Why 
did we hurry except through some mistaken idea 
as absurd as the ascetic's belief? Peace! Peace! 
Let us be still and enjoy this present moment. 
The only way that time is real is in the moment 
that is with us. A future eternity would be like 
a river with only one end, or a sort of ethereal 
vacuum. Every one of these great ideas must be 
brought down into the living present where God 
is. We must become at once enveloped in the 
present, yet superior to it. We must look at 
nature with closer gaze than ever before, yet see 
nature as it truly is in the life of God. Do you 
realise what a great possibility this is, what a help 
in daily life? 

Pause again to grasp this great idea — in eternity ! 



33° Man and the Divine Order 

The soul is united with the Life which has existed 
through all time. Each moment, each feeling, 
each thought, is embosomed in this great continu- 
ous whole; there is no break, there is no cessa- 
tion or interruption. Each and every one of 
these ' ' seeming ' ' things which we have been free- 
ing from its artificial shadows is a clue to this 
great oneness. There are no exceptions. 

Do you remember how loving and tender the 
sweetest of souls was to the sinner, whom he for- 
gave and was most eager to help ? Does it not 
seem strange that man did not follow this clue to 
its full significance, to the perfect love, the om- 
nipresence of God which knows no partiality, no 
separation? What a wonderful significance the 
words of Jesus have for us when we know what he 
means by saying that he came to bring life (not 
death) and immortality to light ! 

Pause yet again to feel yourself grounded in 
eternity, not merely as an affair of thought, but 
as a living realisation. Feel it, shut off steam, 
settle down in repose, and rest in the everlasting 
arms. Let the tide of life pass over and by you, 
let yourself be a part of it, yet not of it. When 
you find it expedient to move rapidly, let your 
outer self, as it were, move while your inner is at 
peace, is as still, as unmoved by the hurry and 
scurry of the crowd as yonder cloud, floating 
along in the beautiful blue sea of the heavenly 



The Eternal Order 331 

silence. Detach your inner self, set it apart to be 
ever aware of what you truly are as an immortal 
soul, a dweller in eternity. Refresh yourself again 
and again in this great ideal. Exclude nothing 
in your life from it. Come back to this conscious- 
ness every time you lose it and make a new start. 

The thought of inclusiveness gives the clue to 
the correction of the errors which we have noted 
in the foregoing pages. We see that no atom, no 
event, no shadow or accident, is outside of the 
directly given life of Deity. Nothing is trivial, 
nothing is without significance in the divine econ- 
omy. He who does not begin by loving cannot 
hope to understand ; for to condemn at the outset 
is to condemn all through, — to doubt that God is 
God, that " order is heaven's first law." For the 
true clue is the rationality of things, the signifi- 
cance of struggle, the place of pain and passion in 
the world. Think back of, within your own pre- 
sent trials to find the divine tendency, the love in 
what seems to be oppression, and you shall really 
find the unity of your life, begin to see things as 
they are. 

It is possible in large measure to overcome tem- 
poral limitations by carrying out the great thought 
of the eternal order. This is a way of making prac- 
tical the truth of the spiritual vision. We learn 
that nature is real in the eternal idea of God. 
The real system of nature is God's wisdom, will, 



33 2 Man and the Divine Order 

in so far as it can be objectively manifested. 
Nature is God's life progressively working itself 
out in the forms of space and time. We truly see 
it when we turn the eye of the soul within to ap- 
prehend the divine will, when we grasp the law of 
the Christ, and take the same attitude towards 
nature which Jesus took in regard to the life before 
him: "Father, not my will, but Thine be done." 
To affirm that nature is an illusion is in part to 
deny the will of God. To declare that nature is 
perfect now, or that space and time are unreal, is 
also to deny the divine will. For the world of 
time is the method of God in the realisation of His 
idea. Nature is perfected, not in a moment, but 
through time, that is, through eternity. We must 
therefore rid our minds of the idea that " crea- 
tion," or eternity, or the divine order, is beyond 
or outside of just such rich moments as they pass. 
The struggles of to-day — yes, just these trying 
contests — are of worth in the great process ; they 
are a part of perfection, which is not something 
by itself, or at the end of all things. There is no 
end ; there is an ever-pulsating beauty which never 
dies, a glory which never fades. Unless you are 
content thus to learn nature, you may as well 
forego the endeavour to understand her. For she 
longs to be known as she is, not as some meta- 
physical ascetic has made her out to be. When 
the clue to nature's rationality is found, we regard 



The Eternal Order 333 

the world as nature transfigured, as a part of the 
spiritual life ; we pass beyond the hasty judgments 
of all metaphysics of the "seeming," shake off 
the burdens of agnosticism and mystical pes- 
simism. In adjusting ourselves to nature as a 
part of the life of God, in grounding ourselves in 
eternity, we attain a much higher unity of the 
self. Our symphony takes on the eternal motif, a, 
transcendental theme. We thus gain inspiration 
of priceless value in the development of peace, 
poise. We look before and after with infinitely 
wider vision. We live in the temporal with 
greater zest, but as members of eternity. 



CHAPTER XV 

EVOLUTION 

THE great fact in regard to nature is that it 
cannot be understood alone. Its unity is 
not in itself, but in the divine order in which it 
fulfils an organic ideal. Its life is not wholly its 
own, but is a manifestation of that supreme Life 
from which all activities spring. It is not even 
known by itself, but is revealed to man through 
consciousness, individual, social, and spiritual. 
Hence the basis of natural evolution must be 
sought in that larger system which characterises 
the divine order as a whole. Evolution is a nat- 
ural consequence of the progressively manifested 
life of God. If it could be sundered from Him, 
God's life would lose part of its significance, its 
beauty, its perfection. Here is the reality of 
evolution. For, in a sense, evolution is as real, 
as fraught with value as the system of ideas which 
its processes manifest. In fact, the spiritual 
totality of things has little meaning apart from 
the temporal evolution. There is no eternity as 
bare eternity. It has significance through the 

334 



Evolution 335 

meaning which fills it, the moments as they suc- 
ceed one another. 

Second in importance to the fact that life is 
ultimately known to us as consciousness, we 
therefore place the fact that it is known as an 
evolution; but evolution as here considered is, 
of course, a purely philosophical conception. 
Nature is a phase of the spiritual life, the phase 
wherein certain divine forces are objectively work- 
ing out the thought of God. To add the idea of 
evolution is simply to make more explicit the fact 
that the divine life is progressively revealed. The 
going forth of the creative spirit, or divine involu- 
tion, of course precedes its visible growth. All 
this is to be borne in mind when we speak of evolu- 
tion. With chance-evolution, or growth proceed- 
ing spontaneously out of no basis and toward no 
end, the present doctrine has nothing to do. 

What, then, is evolution? Undoubtedly the 
best way to illustrate the general principle is by 
starting with the simple phenomena of growth. 
The gradual change from seed to fruition in plant 
life is typical. This may or may not mean pro- 
gress. For it may be mere repetition of the life 
of its predecessors in the plant world. But if the 
seed happens to be planted in an unusually fertile 
soil, is cross-fertilised or otherwise assisted, we 
may have not only an improved plant, but a new 
variety or species, — in other words, evolution. 



33 6 Man and the Divine Order 

Evolution thus grows insensibly out of growth 
itself. In nature there is both a tendency to re- 
petition and a tendency to variation. The one 
tendency may be said to represent the conserva- 
tive activity of God, the other the creative. 
When the creative activity is predominant we 
have evolution. All growth is a balance between 
more or less opposing tendencies. The type tends 
to persist, and the environment tends to break it 
down. The seed vigorously expands from within ; 
the surrounding circumstances may either assist 
or tend to modify the growing life. Growth and 
evolution are both co-operative, are not to be un- 
derstood apart from these twofold factors of the 
individual and its environment, inner and outer. 
To be sure, authorities differ in regard to the 
relative importance of inner and outer. Those 
who emphasise the factors of development from 
within are usually called idealists, while those who 
lay stress upon environment are called realists. 
These two points of view are found throughout the 
history of thought. Among moral philosophers, 
for example, we find two tendencies. The real- 
istic philosophers study the customs of primitive 
peoples and gradually trace the evolution of the 
moral life from the non-moral. The sense of 
moral obligation is thus supposed to be derived 
from certain pre-moral tendencies, from the phy- 
sical behaviour of men in little groups or clans. 



Evolution 337 

By some ethical philosophers the moral sense is 
closely identified with the desire for pleasure. The 
idealistic philosophers, on the other hand, contend 
that it is the fine, inner distinctions, the prompt- 
ings and alternatives of conscience which reveal 
right and wrong. Again, psychologists are divided 
into two schools. The physiological psychologist 
studies, tabulates, and experiments with the 
physical states found in connection with the states 
of mind. Learning that all mental states are ac- 
companied by certain conditions of the brain, he 
reasons that the mind is conditioned by, or is 
parallel to, the body. On the other hand, there 
are those who place so inuch stress on the pow- 
ers of mind that they assert the supremacy of 
thought and the will, to the neglect of the accom- 
panying physiological conditions. In philosophy, 
also, most of the great thinkers have been either 
realists or idealists. 

Nature is of great assistance in the solution of 
this problem. Plant life grows from centre to 
circumference, that is, from seed to rounded plant. 
All animal life begins in a microscopic centre or 
cell, and expands by progressive multiplication or 
cell division. And so with evolution, especially 
mental evolution, the progress of ideas in inven- 
tion, education, and discovery. The great external 
development attendant upon a new invention was 
subsequent to the quickening and development 



338 Man and the Divine Order 

of one idea in one person's mind. Our ideas de- 
velop and multiply, even as cells aggregate and 
grow, from centre to circumference. The first 
essential is the seed, the cell, or idea. Without 
that there can be no growth. Granted that, and 
environment may be a wonderful help. There 
must be both inner and outer, but the inner is the 
centre of power. 

The clue to evolution is this gradual change 
from within. Indeed, this is what we understand 
by evolution. For, as here considered, nature, 
and therefore evolution, is unintelligible apart 
from consciousness. Mind is not introduced into 
evolution at a later stage ; it is not a product of 
matter or of the brain. We know nothing of 
evolution as merely physical, with no conscious 
impelling power. The factors of evolution are 
factors of consciousness. The progressive changes 
in form are due to modifications from within the 
structure, acted upon by other forces playing 
upon the structure from without, but no less 
divine in the ultimate sense of the word. Every- 
thing temporal at some period has had a gradual 
growth by inner expansion and outward assist- 
ance, though that assistance may have come 
through struggle . Nothing has attained its present 
relatively high state of development by any other 
method. There is no exception. That is what 
we mean by the universal law of evolution. 



Evolution 339 

It is not simply that physical man was devel- 
oped from an anthropoid ancestor, but that every 
individual to some extent repeats biologically 
and mentally, socially and spiritually, the age- 
long process of progressive change. Even what 
we call the routine life of vegetation is a summary 
of myriad attainments of ancient evolution. 
Habit is thus merely a routine repetition of that 
which was gradually acquired. Evolution is pro- 
gressive "causation," if you will. To know a 
thing you must retrace its history until you come 
to a time when the thing in question is emerging 
out of a pre-exist ent whole. In other words, 
nothing comes out of ' ' the air ' ' and nothing func- 
tions "in the air." Every force works through 
something. Every event springs out of a con- 
crete environment adequate to produce it. There 
is no need of imported forces. Life is in the mak- 
ing. To know it you must in thought make or 
create with it. And by these terms " make" and 
"create" you must always understand a progres- 
sive achievement. If any one brings forward an 
alleged ready-made product or complete ' ' revela- 
tion," meet him with suspicion, remembering that 
there is self-deception somewhere, or at least 
entire ignorance of the laws of being. 

Even philosophy, which with good reason is 
considered as originating in Greece, was a pro- 
gressive outgrowth of prephilosophic ages. Early 



34o Man and the Divine Order 

philosophy in Greece was simply a different way 
of regarding that which was very old. It was a 
parting of the ways at points where mythology 
failed to satisfy. But when it came to offering 
explanations for natural phenomena, even the 
Ionian physicists and the Eleatic metaphysicians 
made free use of mythological material. Myths 
survived far into Plato's time. Plato constantly 
illustrates by them, and when he is hard put for 
a theory he introduces a myth. The most exact 
statement concerning the origin of philosophy is 
this: "somewhere about," that is, during several 
centuries, say from 600 to 400 B.C., mythology 
gradually became philosophy. There is no doc- 
trine seemingly so original that is not thus in 
many respects due to previous ages of speculation. 
Or illustrate by your own life to-day. You 
happen to be a victim of nervous prostration. 
Was it suddenly brought upon you? No; for 
months and years you have been rushing, strain- 
ing, you have been nervously tense, immoderate. 
The collapse was only a culmination. The cause 
was your wrong mode of life during years. How 
may you regain health ? There is but one method 
of permanent restoration, namely, through grad- 
ual evolution. If you obey certain conditions, 
mental and physiological, nature will slowly 
restore the injured organism. Then you must 
gradually acquire a different habit of life by 



Evolution 34 1 

painstaking and persistent detail. Everything in 
the wide universe has been built point by point, 
detail by detail. There is no other way. If you 
would build anew, begin with what you have, 
and point by point establish a new direction of en- 
ergy. There is no other way. There are hot- 
house methods, but they are not desirable in the 
long run. One may use higher and greater forces, 
but the law is the same ; for acceleration of mo- 
tion does not mean a new law of growth. 

Yet, after all has been said concerning adapta- 
tion to external environment, the final word re- 
lates to the inceptive growth from within. The 
best illustration of this is the development of our 
ideas. To become educated, to attain self-ex- 
pression, we must have companionship, books, 
lessons, teachers, varied experiences, and external 
aids of many kinds. But the essential, without 
which there could be no education, is the activity 
of the soul, the coming forth of that particular 
self -hood in us which differentiates us from all 
other individuals. If we are ever to understand 
evolution at large, we must first take account of 
this inner being which demands expression, and 
to a certain extent triumphs over circumstances. 

While we cannot profitably at this point en- 
ter further into the merits of the idealistic and 
realistic controversy, I emphasise the fact that 
the physical evolutionists, with all their mighty 



34 2 Man and the Divine Order 

researches since the publication of Spencer's Psy- 
chology and Darwin's Origin of Species, have never 
yet explained the real point at issue, — the appear- 
ance of new species, or accounted for the dawning 
of consciousness and the beginnings of the moral 
life. From the point of view of nature as a part 
of the divine order, one therefore says to the physi- 
cist, the realistic ethical philosopher, and to all 
mere evolutionists, Carry the hypothesis of self- 
acting evolution as far as you can; collect all 
the data ; explain, if possible, all the facts, even 
the fact of consciousness and the idea of God, the 
soul, and immortality. But be sure that you are 
first true to the facts as presented in actual life ; 
do not sunder man's environment from the con- 
scious world in which it is found. It is impossible 
to abstract evolution from life as a whole. Strictly 
speaking, we must have a theory of the ultimate 
nature and origin of things before we can intel- 
ligently study evolution. To probe evolution is 
equivalent to sounding consciousness. 

We must possess great insight into ourselves 
before we can begin to see what we mean by 
having so many moods or selves, before we can 
detect the latent divine ideal. Our self is too 
large, too complex to be shown in any one mood 
or experience. We must live with the self day by 
day and year by year. We must learn what we 
truly are by observing the processes of feeling, 



Evolution 343 

thought, volition, pleasure, and pain, by which we 
reveal now this phase of the self, now that. The 
real self is not this evolving self as observed at any 
one time. The real individual is the soul or unit 
lying within and behind these multiform moods 
and selves in their historical manifestation. What 
we mean to be in life is discoverable through our 
total history. In the same way it may be said 
of the universe at large, that what God means 
through it is found by acquaintance with it as an 
historical whole. We thus find the reason for 
things by tracing them far back of their evolution 
to the source out of which they sprang. 

We must, then, break away from local ruts, 
scenes, and events, and contemplate great wholes. 
Life is a whole, and a whole is comprehensible 
through knowledge of all its parts. This little 
self of to-day, with its fears, its doubts, and its 
circumspect thoughts, is only a fragment. Come 
out into the great world, ascend the mountain-top, 
and look far and wide. You should not expect to 
understand a thing by putting your eyes down 
close to it. There are manifold illusions in the 
near-by vision. We must have perspective, and 
that, too, must have its perspective. This is what 
we mean by the point of view of evolution. It is 
the interpretation of life in the light of its total- 
ity as a progressive movement with a divine basis. 
The divine is seen both in the immanent, resident 



344 Man and the Divine Order 

power, and in the activities of environment, in the 
part and in the whole. Evolution is the law or 
method whereby the inner is progressively made 
manifest through the outer. The expression of 
the inner, or soul, is the end. The activity of the 
environment, or outer circumstances, is the means. 
As a whole, evolution is the temporal revelation 
of God, the objective result of God's life as it goes 
forth in progressive manifestation. 

Another point to note is that we are in posses- 
sion of a method of analysing experience. Sup- 
pose that, for example, you are contemplating a 
trip to foreign lands. Accordingly, for years you 
study the languages of the countries which you 
propose to visit, you read the history, art, and 
literature. At length you adopt clearly formu- 
lated views. You have a theory concerning the 
people, a strongly marked theory of the art and 
literature. Thus equipped you depart for the 
foreign land. The chances are that the first few 
days or weeks of your stay your most carefully 
thought-out prejudgments will be rudely upset. In 
the presence of reality all opinions are modified. 
One finds a thousand things which the books said 
nothing about. One must overcome a thousand 
prejudices in order to come somewhere near see- 
ing things as they are. In other words, all a 
priori theories, all theories devised in advance of 
experience, are likely to be greatly modified by 



Evolution 345 

actual life. This is true even in physics, in chem- 
istry, in all domains of thought. Our calculations 
may be decidedly upset by the presence of some 
factor of which we took no account. 

We see, then, how difficult it would be to make 
use of the panaceas of social reformers who claim 
that the social problem is to be solved without re- 
gard to evolution. For life pulsates; it moves 
forward even while we are devising our social 
schemes. Oliver Wendell Holmes tells us that 
we must begin with the grandparents if we would 
reform a man. You cannot expect to modify a 
tree whereon the blossoms have already appeared. 
You must begin far back. Experience will show 
you that nothing can be done suddenly. Evolu- 
tion shows us not one sudden change in all the 
history of the world, except as the outcome of 
slow, minute, gradually accumulated modifica- 
tions and painstaking preparations. 

If you are to reform the world, you must con- 
form to nature's law of growth or accomplish 
nothing. You must begin by finding one recep- 
tive listener, into whose mind you may put one 
idea and leave it to germinate. If you look for 
results you will be disappointed. If your idea 
spreads to a few people during your lifetime, con- 
gratulate yourself; for most reformative ideas 
must encounter opposition for a generation or two 
before they are even considered. You simply 



34 6 Man and the Divine Order 

cannot coerce. And even if you succeed in influ- 
encing people, you cannot predict the result. No 
one knows what will come of your idea. No one 
shall know until the result shall come. For you 
have put your ideas into relation with other men's 
ideas, and the outcome will probably be a new 
species. There is no science of prediction which 
covers that. 

On the supposition that man is "perfect now," 
we must either resort to the hypothesis of illusion 
to account for the sense of imperfection, or we must 
regard life as a merely mechanical unfolding of 
that which is rigidly predestined. If we adopt 
the latter hypothesis the whole world is a huge 
machine ; there is nothing to be achieved, for all 
is fated in advance ; desire is only a new mechani- 
cal combination, ambition is the heat aroused by 
the ceaseless whirr of the machinery ; freedom is an 
absolute myth ; life is a snare and a delusion ; the 
universe was wound up ages go, and when it runs 
down' the weary round will be ended. In such a 
universe human helpfulness has no meaning. Even 
environment is no assistance; for environment 
is mechanically compelled to serve. It is a mere 
truism to state that life is not constituted in that 
way. The utmost we are authorised to say is that 
there are certain tendencies. When you come 
into existence you tend to be a certain individual. 
The changes in your surroundings tend to affect 



Evolution 347 

you in certain ways. Whether the occasion makes 
the man, or man makes the occasion, depends on 
a great many factors. What we are to become 
depends largely on what we do, and what we 
shall do we cannot tell until the hour arrives. 
To a certain extent, therefore, life is experimental 
and we are experimenters. A principle which is 
applicable in society to-day may not be applicable 
to-morrow. The virtue of to-day may be the vice 
of to-morrow. Thousands of deeds once wrought 
in the name of religion are now utterly repugnant 
to us. What some have deemed right and have 
suffered martyrdom for, we now classify as fool- 
ishness. 

How absurd, then, to insist that there are ab- 
solute principles which hold true through all ages 
without regard to evolution ! There may be cer- 
tain great laws and virtues that are always com- 
mendable. But their interpretation varies from 
age to age. The love of truth, the zeal for re- 
ligion is differently expressed. How, then, are 
you to understand these things apart from their 
evolution ? Even freedom, surely one of the ideals 
for which we should ever strive, is progressively 
attained. On the supposition that man is eter- 
nally free, it is still true that his consciousness of 
freedom has an evolution ; that even when con- 
scious of his freedom he may only gradually ex- 
press that consciousness as rapidly as he conquers 



348 Man and the Divine Order 

his lower nature, as social conditions become 
more favourable. For, although the inner life 
is primary, prior, and of great power, it is not 
absolute, it is in part entirely dependent on 
environment. 

The essential point is that you cannot fully, ra- 
tionally describe man in terms of the ideal ; you 
must also take into account the point in evolution 
which he has reached to-day. The ideal is a pos- 
sibility. The conditions of evolution are actuali- 
ties. At any stage man is adequately describable 
only in terms of both the actual and the ideal, 
which the actual seeks to become. And with 
most of us the chief need is to come to judgment 
in the living now. 

Therefore, if we reject the perfection theory,the 
alternative is to study life as it exists to-day and 
ask, Whither is it tending? What are the motive 
forces ? In other words, study life as a whole, as 
you would study a foreign people when you are 
actually in the foreign land. Let your observa- 
tions be first hand, concrete, living, true to fact. 
There are manifold ideals resident in actual life, 
seeking to come forth. Study these as out- 
growths of something immediately past and as 
leading to something in the near-by future. These 
may lead to other ideals which will yield to yet 
others. The motive power that is now working 
at one centre may change its direction and func- 



Evolution 349 

tion elsewhere, as nations have had their day and 
ceased to be. 

The factors of any present-day prob em are 
resident in the problem itself, not outside of it in 
some abstract world. Life unfolds from within, 
making use of whatever it meets. All life pur- 
sues ends. To know what that life is, to learn the 
nature of the ends or ideals, we must examine 
deeply into this living, evolving miracle. 

The reason for emphasising the experimental 
side of life is found in the fact that exponents of 
the cut-and-dried systems of philosophy are so 
emphatic in the opposite direction. It is so easy 
to formulate a perfected social scheme. All would 
be well and good if there were no attempt to apply 
these artificial doctrines. But when this attempt 
is made the schemes do not fit. Therefore, it is 
well to bear in mind that, deeper than these pre- 
dictions and human systems there is a spiritual 
tendency of things. "The Spirit bio weth where 
it listeth." It comes by a law of its own. With 
the Spirit, life is indeed no experiment. But from 
the human point of view there is always reason to 
leave a large section open for future developments 
of which we cannot now take account. 

The abstract philosopher formulates a rule 
which he applies from outside, seeking to solve all 
problems by that. If people would only accept 
his creed, follow his method, drink his universal 



35° Man and the Divine Order 

specific, they would become perfectly happy and 
sound, they would be eternally saved. We find 
this tendency in religion, we find it among teach- 
ers, authors, among all sorts and conditions of 
leaders of men. The philosophy of this book is 
so far a revolt from that position that we counsel 
entire allegiance to the concrete method, the study 
of life as it pulsates in and through us. But we 
give this further admonition: Search life deeply 
enough to find all that is actually resident there, 
seeking expression: press home your thought to 
the eternal whole, to the ground of all things in 
the divine order. 

Perhaps the best way to contrast these two 
methods is by reference to two general methods of 
education. The old education, by the text -book 
method, was virtually an attempt to make all 
men alike. All were to take the same studies. 
All were to use the same books. Think of the 
hours and days and months that were spent in 
committing names and dates and grammatical 
rules to memory ! Think of the children who have 
suffered under this coercive system! Under the 
new regime the teacher studies his pupil. He 
observes him while the pupil is doing something 
he really wants to do. He thus acquaints himself 
with the child's tendencies, his needs and aspira- 
tions. He then adapts himself to these individual 
needs, seeks to call out the soul. 



Evolution 35 I 

Our philosophical plan is an adaptation of the 
same method. We study the behaviour of nature, 
of nations, of individuals, — men and women,- — to 
learn what God, the omnipresent Spirit, is seeking 
to achieve through it all. And we can no more 
formulate a rule which applies to all cases than 
we can find an abstract scheme of education which 
shall apply to all types of minds. Life is concrete. 
It is here, pulsating now. One moment of present 
observation is worth a thousand fossil specimens 
of human philosophy. The very meaning of 
evolution itself is bound up with the concrete. 
According to the old idea of creation God dwelt 
afar upon a great white throne, issued creat- 
ive fiats, and the thing was done in six days. 
Now we know that the merest incident in your 
life or mine is part of the great forward pulse 
of evolution. 



CHAPTER XVI 

LOWER AND HIGHER 

ONE of the most noteworthy facts in the realm 
of natural evolution is the contrast between 
lower and higher forces. For long ages in large 
part a contest between the weak and the strong, 
the less and the more ferocious, this conflict at 
length emerges as a prominent characteristic of 
the moral order. To understand this contest as 
a world-process is to possess a principle of philo- 
sophical interpretation which contains a solution 
of the problem of evil. The clue is worth follow- 
ing to the end, since it is, perhaps, the most direct 
guide to the unity of life. In fact, when material- 
ism fails, when physical science falls back impot- 
ent in the presence of consciousness and the facts 
of the moral order, this is the alternative. The 
principle is not a new one, but it assumes new sig- 
nificance in the light of the philosophy of evolu- 
tion. The failure of materialistic evolutionism to 
account for its own facts is a powerful argument 
in favor of returning to the ancient principle of 
interpretation. 

352 



Lower and Higher 353 

In quest of modern evidence we are aided at 
the outset by the pictures which geology and the 
other natural sciences have drawn for us of the 
successive stages of plant and animal life. There 
was the carboniferous age, for example, with its 
grossly luxuriant vegetation, the remains of which, 
stored away in the earth, now serve the latest 
arrival — man. From simple to complex, from 
lower to higher organisation, has been the history 
of all forms, types, and modes of life. Species after 
species of plants and animals came on the scene, 
flourished for a time, and ceased to be. Yet the 
lower forms did not in one sense cease to exist ; for 
while the gigantic plants and animals of prehis- 
toric times perished utterly, their more finely 
built successors assimilated the better results of 
their existence, so that man, as the highest animal 
of all, is an epitome of creation. Size and strength 
once counted for everything. But a day came 
when cunning played the more prominent part. 
With the growth of mind, life became still more 
refined, and a wonderful inner world of intellect- 
ual and religious standards began to develop. 

Thus savagery gave place to the beginnings of 
civilisation, and nation after nation had its day, 
then vanished for ever. Time was when man was 
almost wholly devoted to warfare, and no protest 
was made when man slew his brother man. But 
at length he began to despise bloodshed and culti- 



354 Man and the Divine Order 

vate the arts of peace. We have warfare with us 
still, and its instruments are the cruelest known 
to history. But each war is fought with greater 
protests, and year by year wise men are finding 
higher substitutes for the gun and the sword. 
The important fact is not the survival of warlike 
traits, but the appearance of something higher. 

It would be an unwarranted generalisation to 
claim that evolution has steadily advanced from 
lower to higher. The law of evolution provides 
for downward growths, like the descending 
branches of a tree, and evolution is not necessarily 
a law of such uniformity and beauty as the sym- 
metry of the tree suggests. Superior peoples, like 
the Greeks, may give place to inferior nations. 
Great losses may occur amidst small gains. But 
the march of the whole nevertheless shows this 
general principle to be a law of life. There is in 
nature and in man a tendency to aspire, and with 
the appearance of new forms and superior stand- 
ards the old in due time gives place. The great 
fact is not that there is a lower to torment us by 
its survival, but that we make a constructive re- 
action upon it. The justification of the contest is 
that which is produced by it. If the lower dis- 
appeared at once when the higher came on the 
scene, evolution would cease. The entire history 
of nature's products shows that conflict of lower 
and higher is a law of existence. Everything that 



Lower and Higher 355 

lives must struggle to live, and everything new 
must fight for existence with that which already 
occupies the field. But in so struggling it de- 
velops the greater power which enables it eventu- 
ally to triumph. The mere fact that the forms of 
life by which we are now environed are here 
shows that there has been an age-long contest for 
life. However much evolutionists may differ in 
the use of terms all agree in emphasising the law 
of struggle. 

In the intellectual world, also, truth is only 
established through conflict. The bitterly op- 
posed truth of to-day is on equal terms with the 
old to-morrow, and will soon be a conservative 
doctrine in comparison with a later discovery. 
Conservatism holds radicalism in check, and the 
progressive leader of a new generation wakens 
the soul from the dogmatic slumbers of the past. 
The new idea becomes a part of everybody's life, 
to become in turn an encrusted dogma. Thus ever 
on and on, in ceaseless, tireless flow, the great tide 
of life and thought sweeps forward. 

The struggle seems terribly bitter at times, 
namely, in the cruel oppressions of man's servi- 
tude, out of which freedom grew, the fierce warfare 
of hate over which love triumphed, and the harsh 
intolerance which gave birth to tolerance. Again 
and again, lower and higher have gone down, as it 
were in a life-and-death grasp. The long contest 



35 6 Man and the Divine Order 

of egoism and altruism, seen in its beginnings as 
the struggle of the higher for emancipation, and 
the desperate endeavours of the lower to keep it 
in subjection, seems for ages to be a decidedly 
uncertain struggle. But out of the bitterest feuds 
the noblest fruits have come. Such is the path- 
way of the Spirit. 

To the majority of men the contest of the 
forces which make for righteousness and those 
which make for unrighteousness has been a com- 
plete mystery. It was natural to attribute the 
mischief to an adversary who must be fought. 
Thus dualism was the philosophy which man nat- 
urally developed when he sought to account for 
the strife. As man was supposed to be at the 
mercy of an adversary outside of himself, the true 
explanation was for ages overlooked. Through 
the perspective of the evolutionary centuries we 
are now able to see the meaning of the conflict as 
primarily resident in man, in whom the human 
was added to the animal, which thereupon be- 
came a lower in relation to a higher. The crown- 
ing glory of the animal world thus became the 
untamed lower self of man. In his ignorance man 
misunderstood and fought the beast in him, then 
in a measure succumbed where he knew not how 
to conquer. Thus we already understand in part 
the long ages of sin and degradation. The philo- 
sophy of evolution has made us familiar with 



Lower and Higher 357 

the details of man's animal origin. It is only 
necessary to hint at the great fact. But the law 
that is not yet clear is the principle of compensa- 
tion. Many who clearly see the necessity of con- 
flict in the physical world fail to see that the same 
mighty contest has been transferred to the moral 
world, that it is just this conflict which has led to 
the moral products of to-day. The law is not 
adequately stated by the evolutionists. You shall 
look in vain to find in nature the source of all 
that man would be; for another higher has suc- 
ceeded nature as a transcended lower. But the 
relationship is the same. As we now see the value 
of plant and animal evolution, so we may appre- 
ciate man's moral and spiritual contests if we will 
but look far and high enough. 

If you will look through the world for the dark- 
est facts of man's sinful life, you will find none 
which cannot be classed under this head . The lower 
is not present there alone ; there is a higher 
nature there, patiently seeking recognition. With- 
out consciousness of a higher it would be impos- 
sible to know that something else is lower. To sin 
is to choose and manifest a lower in the presence 
of a higher. Where there is no choice there is no 
wrong. It is the mistaken use of man's powers 
which lies at the root of evil. It is not the power 
used that is evil. All power is in itself good, that 
is, when rightly used. Evolution from lower to 



35 8 Man and the Divine Order 

higher proves itself good by its fruits. The con- 
trast between a better and a worse, the conflict 
whereby man finally triumphs, even the suffering 
which he endures — all this is good, so far as he 
brings good out of it. For only by comparison 
with that which is unlike it is anything known. 
Light is light to us because we have known dark- 
ness ; truth is true because we have known error. 
There is surely no reason to complain of the con- 
ditions whereon we have thrived, with which we 
have wrestled. It is too soon to generalise about 
all moral problems. But through the mists of the 
long ages of conflict we see the light ; what man has 
accomplished in the lower domains he can repeat 
in higher forms ; we see the law and it sufficeth to 
clear away the mystery, at least in part. The 
rest is work, downright work. 

Does this seem too optimistic an interpretation 
of human nature? Then look again at human 
history, and behold the law. See man appearing 
on the stage of the animal world, ignorant, emo- 
tional, swept by violent passions and fears. See 
these fierce forces at play. Remember the long 
road which man had to climb, the high attain- 
ments for which he has paid a mighty price. Is it 
any wonder that, possessing such possibilities and 
forces, man has been capable of almost every ex- 
cess? He has paid a tremendous price for his 
sin in a universe where a prize is offered for virtue. 



Lower and Higher 359 

He has dallied and played with fire to the bitter 
end. But with it all the spirit of progress has 
moved until, little by little, knowledge has taken 
the place of ignorance, man has learned the law of 
pain and pleasure, and finally the law of mastery 
of the animal self. 

For example, look more closely at the conflict of 
man's better self with the fierce outbursts of pas- 
sion in him. The usual method is to condemn 
man for possessing the passion. He is not helped 
to overcome it, he is told that he is a sinner or is 
imprisoned by organised ignorance with a hundred 
other victims. Thus the strife, the duality, is 
intensified. But explain the origin of the animal 
in man, explain that the existence of the lower 
is essential to the growth of the higher, and 
the whole problem is put in a new and hope- 
ful light. It is not now a question of warfare, 
but of transmutation of energy from lower to 
higher ; not a demand for extermination, but for 
assimilation. 

The same power which one might expend as 
bitter enmity, coercion, and warfare may be ex- 
pressed as sweet brotherhood, persuasion, and 
peace. There was wrong-doing only while the 
lower was dominant. The first great discovery is 
the possibility of transmutation. The second is 
the fact that the lower in itself is good, that it is a 
manifestation of God's power. The third is the 



360 Man and the Divine Order 

value of the lower to the higher, namely, that 
evolution proceeds through struggle. 

Thus the old dualism is transformed into unity. 
God is on both sides of the line. The power is the 
same in contrasted forms, just as, for example, the 
planets are held in their positions in space by both 
centrifugal and centripetal energy. It is all one 
piece, one system, one adaptation of means to 
ends. That which has been deemed a mystery 
and has been charged against God is precisely the 
state of affairs which makes all moral growth pos- 
sible. It was the belief that one of the factors was 
good, the other evil, which led men off the track. 
It was not till the rise of the philosophy of evolu- 
tion that man began to see his theoretical mistake. 
With the change in point of view, there is gradu- 
ally coming about a change in the moral attitude. 
In due course the whole matter will be handed 
over to education. For what man needs is en- 
lightenment. He needs just this priceless know- 
ledge that all life is a system, an order ; that man 
is the centre of attraction of opposing forces, and 
that it is possible for him by understanding the 
law of transmutation, or growth, to add higher to 
lower, and highest to higher, till all that is earthy 
be lifted up, till the Christ within him draw all 
else to its own transcendent plane. 

The prospect that there may be unity where we 
once feared all might be chaos is the last great 



Lower and Higher 361 

victory in our plea for the right to view the uni- 
verse as a divine order. We thus steal into the 
stronghold of the enemy in disguise. Let us 
maintain the disguise and cling to the ideal of 
unity. Let us dispense for ever with the idea of 
evil in so far as it is attributed to the general sys- 
tem of things, and relegate it to the limbo whither 
the devil and hell, regarded as generalities, have 
already been consigned. Let us forego all con- 
demnation of the universe, and take the hope at 
its word which evolution suggests. This does not 
mean the denial of any facts. A given misdeed, 
such as a murder, is as bad as ever. To call evil 
" lower" is not to excuse it, nor to grant the least 
license to commit it. Nor does it entitle us to do 
evil that good may come. The new terminology, 
based on the facts of evolution, gives us a way of 
thinking about life as a whole which does away 
with the ultimate dualism, and provides a prac- 
tical method of overcoming evil. It calls for a 
broader way of looking at things, one which con- 
siders not only the sin of evil, but all the cir- 
cumstances, inheritances, physiological conditions, 
pathological states, mental inabilities, and temp- 
tations; and which regards the sinner from the 
point, of view of his ideal possibilities as a moral 
being, a son of God, not as a miserable sinner to 
be autocratically condemned. 

Another reason for choosing the terms " lower" 



362 Man and the Divine Order 

and " higher" instead of the terms "evil" and 
"good " is that in deepest truth they are relative. 
It is a truism in these days to state that the in- 
tuition of one age becomes the reason of the next 
and the superstition of the third. The utmost 
that can be said for any science, philosophy, or 
religion is that it is the best that could be devel- 
oped in a given age. Man has outgrown creeds 
and customs too fast to warrant the belief that 
there is anything absolute. The command to do 
right is, of course, absolute. But, when all has 
been said, it does not matter so much what is done 
as that the highest we know is done. All that the 
universe can reasonably demand of us at any time 
is that we obey the higher instead of the lower. 

Nothing is more noticeable in our comments 
on one another than the implication that some ac- 
tions are better than others. The consciousness of 
lower and higher is so characteristic of the race 
that we may venture to define man as the being 
who is conscious of a lower and a higher. In the 
inmost life of each of us this distinction is clearly 
marked. We are aware of certain aspirations, 
hopes, promptings. On the other hand, we 
are dissatisfied, exasperated, constantly exclaim- 
ing, If I could but master this unruly self! If I 
could be free from the animal, the selfish, and the 
tyrannical ! 

A struggle between selves, — this is the history of 



Lower and Higher 3 6 3 

life; and one must find the love of God in this 
struggle if it is to be found at all. In one way or 
another the principle is the same. It is the con- 
test between ignorance and knowledge, between 
pain and harmony, thought and sensation, or soul 
and body; and, in naming this last contrast, we 
have touched upon the heart of the entire process. 

We may confidently declare that we are spir- 
itual beings in the rough, souls possessing un- 
trained physical organisms and a multitude of 
conflicting forces. The vital question ever is, 
How shall we master and transmute the un- 
trained ? For the problem of the ultimate nature 
and origin of lower and higher is of far less conse- 
quence than that of their proper adjustment. Let 
us, therefore, take ourselves simply as we are, — 
conscious beings existing in a world where events 
move forward by evolution, that is, by change 
from lower to higher. We are played upon by 
two streams of energy, the one drawing us down, 
the other inviting us up. Man, the soul, existing 
between, has the power to obey the one or the 
other. What is the wisest attitude toward each 
of these forms of energy? — -that is our question. 

From one point of view, it would seem wise to 
speak of these two forms of life as one power, 
since both may be said to make for our moral and 
spiritual evolution. This doctrine is urged with 
great emphasis nowadays. All roads lead to 



364 Man and the Divine Order 

Rome it is said: "all is good." It matters net 
what you do, you are sure to come out right ; for 
there is no evil. Any situation in which you find 
yourself placed is the best possible situation. But 
this is fatalism with a vengeance. It is a denial of 
the conditions whereby all progress takes place. 
For where all is indiscriminately good, there is 
neither lower nor higher; all intellectual, moral, 
and spiritual standards are vain ; one thing is as 
good as another, crime is as good as benevolence, 
robbery as good as generosity. 

But the very life of morality is grounded in dis- 
tinctions. Conscience is nothing if not a law that 
some deeds are right, some wrong. Moreover, the 
fact of freedom implies power to choose between 
two or more alternatives. Hence several courses 
are possible, and responsibility rests upon us in so 
far as we are enlightened. Nothing could be fur- 
ther from the facts of our moral consciousness 
than to assert that " we all do as well as we know." 
The unqualified declaration that "all is good" is 
positively immoral. To assert that "our cir- 
cumstances could not have been otherwise" is 
literally to declare that since the foundation of 
the world there has not been a moment of freedom, 
there never has been an alternative ; every event, 
without exception, has come from a single source. 
It follows that we are automata, machines. On 
the other hand, if but one moment of freedom 



Lower and Higher 365 

ever existed, if man ever committed one act of his 
own, circumstances might have been different. If 
there is a right there is also a wrong. If there are 
lower and higher alternatives and forces, progress 
is possible. 

It is not only necessary to distinguish lower 
from higher in nature, but to discriminate between 
nature and the moral sphere, between what is and 
what ought to be. Were it true that " whatever is, 
is right," there could be no progress. That which 
is is only part of life, and is unintelligible by itself. 
We are called upon to regard that which is, from 
the point of view of what it can be made to become 
by fidelity to what ought to be. That which is, 
may be made right by action in accordance with 
a higher standard. 

Even regarded from the point of view of that 
which is, the universe is not constructed on the 
plan of one power only : its harmony is the result 
of opposing forces, the one pulling up, the other 
down; one centripetal, another centrifugal; one 
moving toward death, the other toward life ; one 
negative, the other positive ; one moving toward 
Rome, the other away from it. A product of two 
forces, male and female, animal and human, 
human and divine, man naturally begins his ex- 
perience in dual form. Morally, he stands be- 
tween conflicting forces, one of which he must 
choose, both of which he cannot simultaneously 



366 Man and the Divine Order 

obey. Both are essential in a moral universe; 
and therefore both are, from one point of view, 
good. Both are from God, yet we must distin- 
guish between them. But if, conscious of the 
higher, man chooses the lower, he is surely doing 
wrong and must suffer wrong. 

Rome is not to be reached by continually going 
down-hill. The only point to be gained by going 
downward is the knowledge that it is wrong, that 
it is a misuse of energy. Every man is free to go 
down -hill. But by the eternal law of cause and 
effect, as the wrong-doing increases the suffering 
becomes more intense. The true statement is 
this : Although the road to Rome is not down-hill, 
at every turn there is a sign-board pointing back 
to Rome ; and thus there are no uninformed souls. 
The consciousness of lower and higher never de- 
serts us. Every situation in life may be turned 
to good account when man learns its evolutionary 
meaning. 

Any philosophy is to be rejected, therefore, 
which minimises the power and place of con- 
science. That morality varies from age to age is 
no argument against its divine origin. A people 
may see the ideal more or less clearly, but the 
vision is ever there. It is always lower to hate 
and higher to love. Hate and love may assume 
many new forms, and in our self-complacency we 
mav deem ourselves free from the vices of our 



Lower and Higher 367 

ancestors. But the contest continues, though in 
altered circumstances; and always there is a 
prompting which leads us on and on. 

The full significance of moral distinctions is 
only understood in the light of the high ethical 
ideals to be achieved. That justice may be done, 
that righteousness may triumph, we must be on 
the alert for those fine discriminations which dif- 
ferentiate the higher from the lower. It is be- 
cause man is to ascend so high that he must begin 
far down in the animal realm, and learn by painful 
experience what is worthy and what is unworthy. 
Thus every step in the ascent is marked by moral 
choice and contest. The full meaning of that 
contest is only seen when man learns that it was 
his lower self which wanted to sin and degenerate ; 
that in his heart of hearts he was troubled by a 
divine unrest, a longing for the perfect, the beauti- 
ful, and the true, which he was free to choose. 

Let it be remembered that the lower nature is 
only to be understood in reference to the higher. 
Evil is incomprehensible alone. It will ever seem 
dark and mysterious, irreconcilable with the divine 
love, as long as we look downward and not up. 

In the past man has allowed himself to become 
absorbed in contemplation of the lower to the 
neglect of the higher. He has condemned him- 
self, condemned men, and cursed God. Conse- 
quently, he has greatly intensified the difficulties 



368 Man and the Divine Order 

of life's problem, for life always looks dark when 
we look only at the dark side. But if a higher 
product may be brought out of the contest we 
must look at that contest from the evolutionary 
point of view Just as a seed or embryo is intel- 
ligible from the point of view of the perfected pro- 
duct presently to be developed out of it, so with 
pain and disease, passion, and all that is distress- 
ing. These are not to be understood or conquered 
alone. It is useless to try to drive out passion. 
The only way to master it is to lift the organism 
to a level where passion is impossible. 

The infant is to become the man. Remember 
this when the disagreeable period of youth sets in. 
The vicious man may become the virtuous. The 
ignorant may become wise. The diseased may 
become healthy. Out of every contest between 
lower and higher a nobler product may rise. 
That product may give place to a nobler, and so 
on. Life is, or may become, progressive. Man is 
inclined to be a progressive being. This great 
possibility cannot be too often repeated. We 
may regard ourselves as angels in the making. 
The essential is to dwell upon the positive side, 
cleave to the ideal, aspire, lift up, as if grasping 
the hand of some guardian spirit, by whose power 
we may triumph over all that binds and enslaves. 

When we are in search of unity we must find 
it, therefore, not by philosophically levelling all 



Lower and Higher 369 

forces into one, by sweeping away all standards 
except our favourite doctrine, but by turning from 
the contrast and the conflict to the one great Life 
behind. The desideratum is not the destruction 
of one force that the other may live, but the per- 
fect balance between them. Both are essential to 
the harmony of life. Behind, within, and around 
them, in all their encounters, there is One so 
great, so wise, that all that exists, all that can 
ever occur, is carried forward, and will— so hope 
assures us — be turned to account. The two forces 
are thus regarded by the philosophy of hope as 
members of one system. 

It surely needs no argument to show that an 
effect cannot be greater than its cause. The 
lower cannot give birth to the higher, for the 
higher is more elaborately developed and serves a 
nobler end. Moreover, the contrast is ultimate, 
so far as we can see. From the dawn of evolution 
— and possibly there was no dawn — there must 
have been a lower and a higher; for the two are 
essential to evolution, as we know from a study of 
the evolution which is going on within and around 
us to-day. As long as man continues to advance, 
there will be a lower and a higher. 

If the external changes were causes, evolution 
would undoubtedly continue indefinitely, and we 
should have no fixed types. But we know that 
this is not so. Long ago the animal and vegetal 



37° Man and the Divine Order 

worlds ceased to be the chief centres of creative 
activity, and few changes occur nowadays in these 
kingdoms except those which are brought about 
by man. Long ago the creative power turned 
into other channels, now manifesting itself in one 
nation, now active in the life of another. Hence 
a country like Egypt, for example, has its day and 
ceases to be. Its external structures fall into 
decay, its wise men no longer stand at the head of 
the learned men of the world, and the balance of 
power is transferred to some other region, where 
it becomes active through another type of mind. 
This may not be the result of a creative "plan," 
but it clearly exemplifies the actual law of 
change. 

The essence of the ideal method is to dwell upon 
the higher and let the lower fall into line. Once 
adopt the philosophy for which I am arguing, and 
the lower will begin to lose its power. The diffi- 
culty has been that we were so absorbed in the 
negative conditions, in self-condemnation, com- 
plaint, and pessimism, that we could not behold 
the lower in its true light. But when the mean- 
ing of the lower is seen as essential to the growth 
of the higher and the perfection of the soul, the 
balance of power is gradually transferred from the 
lower to the higher. 

One of the first essentials is the acceptance of 
the situation as understood from the ideal point 



Lower and Higher 37 l 

of view. Man is such a being that his highest 
welfare may only be secured through more or less 
suffering. The law is universal and knows no ex- 
emption until a certain plane is reached. There- 
fore face the situation as you find it to-day. 
Acknowledge all that you are, all that you hope 
for and struggle under. See yourself as the centre 
of creative activity still unfinished, and see how 
your life has been softened, purified, strengthened 
by the pains you have suffered, the hardships you 
have endured, and the obstacles you have con- 
quered. The advance may have seemed slight at 
times. You may doubt that you are making pro- 
gress to-day. But there is always something stir- 
ring, and always you must take some attitude 
toward it. It makes a vast difference whether you 
hate, condemn, and make yourself miserable, or 
whether you welcome every opportunity as an 
occasion for the triumph of wisdom, love, beauty. 
The same experience will seem a curse or a bless- 
ing, according as you view it. It will linger or 
begin to give way to a higher experience, accord- 
ing to the way in which you welcome it. In the 
last analysis, therefore, you have only yourself to 
question, only yourself to blame. 

Thus the conclusive evidence that life really is 
an intermingling of lower and higher, with an ideal 
outlook, is the application in one's own life of the 
idealism which the foregoing pages suggest. The 



37 2 Man and the Divine Order 

first point is to grasp the law of lower and higher 
as the intelligible method of dealing with our con- 
flicts. The second is to see that we must acquaint 
ourselves with the higher in order to possess the 
power to conquer the lower. How shall we grow in 
knowledge of the higher ? By the same empirical 
method which has served thus far. That is, we 
must plunge once more into actual life, and study 
the activities of man in his pursuit of unity, in his 
aspirations, his religious experience. For the true 
higher is the soul, the moral cosmos, the divine 
order. 



CHAPTER XVII 

CHRISTIANITY 

PROBABLY no term has received a greater 
variety of definitions than the term Christ- 
ianity. It has meant a thousand different things 
to as many persons. It has stood for a thousand 
incongruous creeds, systems, sects, theories, of re- 
form and plans of salvation. It is redefined in 
every age, and each age deems its interpretation 
authoritative, while all previous definitions are 
classified as partial and historical. The astrologist 
tells us that Jesus read the signs of the heavens, and 
was able to foretell great upheavals. Hundreds of 
Protestant sects quote Jesus' words to prove that 
he meant just what they believe. The exponent of 
the Vedanta philosophy assures us that Jesus was 
simply a Buddhist monk of the Essenes, informed 
in the mysteries of the Orient. The Jew is posit- 
ive that Jesus was merely a teacher of traditional 
doctrines. Probably as time goes on there will be 
more,- rather than fewer, sects which will quote 
Jesus as authority. The Christian socialist in our 
day is sure that he has the right clue, and every 
age may be equally sure. 

373 



374 Man and the Divine Order 

Amidst this array it would be presumptuous 
for any one who essays to be fair to all sides to as- 
sume that he knows precisely what Christianity is. 
Every man finds in the New Testament what he is 
and what he has thought, coupled with the thought 
of his age. It were folly nowadays to quote 
Scripture to prove one's faith. One might better 
set that faith forth in its own terms. Yet the fact 
that so many faiths have found verification in 
Christianity may be taken to mean that Christ- 
ianity is universal. All that has been read into 
the New Testament may be there, except the dog- 
matism of those who assume that they know all 
about Jesus and where he was taught. Expon- 
ents of the Gospel may err rather by defect than 
by excess. At any rate, every one is free to say 
with heartiest enthusiasm what Christianity is to 
him. 

Let us begin by assuming that Christianity is 
a universal system, that it applies to the entire 
divine order. It may also be defined as a method 
of individual consciousness, growth, adjustment; 
a plan for the regeneration and perfection of the 
race. Further, it is a religion which fulfils many 
other faiths. Finally, it is practical, — applies 
to every situation in human life. These are the 
broad general outlines within which I shall gradu- 
ally supply the details, and undertake to make 
good the assumptions. 



Christianity 375 

i. The prime essential of Christianity as enun- 
ciated by Jesus is the discovery of the divine order, 
the law which makes all things harmoniously pur- 
posive in the kingdom of God. From the human 
point of view, this means the discovery that of 
himself man is and can do nothing. It means the 
utter renunciation of self as such. 

At first, this looks like a purely negative state- 
ment ; it is strikingly in contrast with the affirm- 
ative individualism of our day. It means the 
sacrifice of plans, desires, hopes, in so far as these 
imply personal will or preference. It means that 
one ceases once for all to choose for self. No longer 
is one to try to manage the world, or regulate the 
energies of social reform. One must be ready to 
go anywhere, be cast into any situation, meet any 
hardship. The ties of home are to be sundered if 
necessary. In general, one is to follow the lead 
of the Spirit. And one is to make this entire con- 
secration of self without knowing that anything is 
to come in return : it is an entirely free sacrifice, a 
choice, not the result of compulsion, not fore- 
ordained " election." The same great fruits of 
the Spirit are open to all who will pay the price. 
Christianity is for the whole people, not for a few 
favoured mortals. 

But that which seemed to be entirely negative 
proves to be the most positive law. "He that 
loseth his life shall find it." He who finds that he 



37& Man and the Divine Order 

is nothing of himself learns that he is everything 
through individual relation to the divine order. 
The negative statement is that one is not and 
cannot be independent, that one is indissolubly 
linked to humanity and to the Father. To try to 
be aught of one's self is to seek to build one's own 
world. One is free to try the experiment. But 
that is not the road to perfection, nor even to what 
is called success. " I [the Christ] am the way, the 
truth, and the life." There is no other way. This 
is the law of the divine order. A man must put 
himself into certain relations to reap the results. 

Yet that which appears stringent and binding to 
the one who does not yet love the Father enough 
to pay the price is the tenderest condition of love to 
one who is ready. "All 's love, yet all's law." 
The soul is bound, yet free. The same conditions 
are opportunities of freedom or cruel decrees of 
fate, according as we view them. There can be 
but one best way ; all other roads are inevitably 
beset by conditions from which there is no escape 
except by turning to the pathway of the Spirit. 
There may be myriad courses leading to the one 
great end, so that the life-round of no two follow- 
ers of the Spirit may be alike. But the great fact 
remains that each soul must find the pathway by 
coming to judgment as Jesus has said, namely, 
"Not my will but Thine be done." 

That will may not be the same for you and for 



Christianity 377 

me. You may be called upon to sacrifice where I 
shall be asked to retain. I may pass through what 
would be of little value to you. But the will of 
God is universal; it applies to the entire divine 
order. There is a work for you and a work for 
me, and each of us must find out in his own way, 
directly from God, what that work is. No one 
can tell another, yet the law is the same for all. 
Of myself I can do nothing, but with God and 
humanity I can do a mighty work. There could 
not be two omnipotents, two ways in which there 
should be no obstacle. Granted a universe of 
myriads of souls, each with a mission, each with 
power to fulfil that mission, and there must be 
organisation; each purpose must be organically 
adjusted in relation to all others. Otherwise there 
would be chaos. Hence the rigid walls of fate 
on all sides but one ; hence, some are free where 
others are bound. 

This looks like foreordination. Yet once more 
"all 's love, yet all 's law." The pathway of the 
Spirit would have no significance for us, unless it 
were freely chosen. We may follow our own wills 
if we choose. The universe is large and has room 
for both the saint and sinner, with a great variety 
of types between. But if — note the condition — 
if we choose the pathway of the Christ we must 
follow that course, not as we would personally ar- 
range matters, but as all things work together 



37% Man and the Divine Order 

towards one great end in the social kingdom of 
the Spirit. There are many souls, many ideals to 
consider. Therefore there must be adaptation in 
the light of the general good, the social kingdom. 
That is the law of the divine order, and without 
that man can do nothing in the Christ-world. 

The well-nigh discouraging discovery that of 
one's self one is nothing, is the finding of a centre 
from which are seen to radiate the innumerable 
pathways of the Spirit out, out into the great 
world which knows no bounds. "I can do all 
things through Him who strength en eth me." I 
must first find the centre, then I may proceed to 
the circumference. 

Jesus tells us in many different terms what this 
centre is. "Blessed are the poor in spirit: for 
theirs is the kingdom of heaven." That is, happy 
are they who make this great discovery, — that of 
themselves they are poor indeed, for in that atti- 
tude they shall find the only true wealth. 

" Blessed are they that mourn : for they shall be 
comforted." Even grief, with the sense of utter 
helplessness it brings, is a way into that kingdom 
in which there is held indeed the comfort of the 
Spirit. Many times it is the helplessness of the 
finite in times of mourning which leads the way to 
the revelation of God's presence. 

" Blessed are the meek : for they shall inherit the 
earth. ' ' ' ' Happy are the gentle, " is a later render- 



Christianity 379 

ing. The man of peace is the Christ, he who com- 
bines in one life the tenderness of the woman and 
the strength of the man : he it is who shall have 
this marvellous power which shall regenerate the 
earth ; he shall possess the world. 

''Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst 
after righteousness: for they shall be filled." 
There must be the deep desire, the passionate 
hungering, before the kingdom shall be found. 
But they who thus hunger shall not be disap- 
pointed. 

" Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain 
mercy." The action is reciprocal; he who does a 
deed for the kingdom will find all things in his life 
tending to correspond. 

Purity of heart, peace, love, all these are condi- 
tions of receptivity which invite the Spirit. Even 
when we are persecuted because we have chosen 
the ' ' way of the cross ' ' we are entering farther into 
the kingdom. We ought ever to rejoice, for the 
opportunity is great, and all who have entered in 
have been thus persecuted. 

Again, Jesus assures us that unless we become as 
little children we shall in no wise meet the great 
condition of entrance into the kingdom. One 
must literally empty the cup, free the mind of 
theories, consecrate the head as well as the heart. 
Simplicity, humility, is the prime condition, the 
receptivity of nature unadorned and untampered 



380 Man and the Divine Order 

with. If we have intellectual power so much the 
better, if only we dedicate it to the uses of the 
Spirit. But only the Spirit can tell us how 
rightly to use the intellect. 

Yet again, we are told that no man can serve 
two masters. The condition is as inexorable as 
the most rigid rule in mathematics, and it is a hard 
saying, especially for those who have wealth ; it is 
becoming harder in our century. It is a question 
of love or hate, — there is no compromise. The 
hard saying is not to be explained away as an 
allegory ; it is a literal condition. Man must free 
himself from all that he hath. If it comes back to 
him to be used for spiritual ends, well and good, 
but every cent must be used as the Spirit directs. 
Poverty is by no means synonymous with Christ- 
ianity. The ideal is to be free from all material 
things. One who gains that freedom while pos- 
sessing great wealth wins the greater triumph, 
conquers a greater temptation than the monk who 
courts poverty. But it is not likely that many 
who choose the kingdom will have this particular 
triumph to win. 

2. The second great discovery is that Christian- 
ity is first individual before it leads to the larger 
social results. Salvation begins with the discovery 
that the man himself must do the work, that 
there is no one to do it for him. Salvation is 
more an affair of life than of belief. To stand 



Christianity 3 Sl 

up and confess one's self a follower of Jesus, to 
say that one believes in him, may be a first 
step with people of a certain type, but the crucial 
question is, Does the person who makes this 
profession of faith live by it hour by hour and 
day by day? If he merely believes under the 
supposition that belief saves, he has not yet found 
the kingdom. 

Here we come face to face with an older inter- 
pretation of Christianity, and we may as well meet 
it at once. Let us prepare the way, however, by 
assuring those who cling to the atonement, that 
we shall find a way to preserve the essential truth 
of this doctrine. 

If we accept the premise that man is a "de- 
praved ' ' being by inheritance, that an angry God 
must be appeased, and that the only begotten son 
had to be sacrificed to set things right; then 
the doctrine of the atonement in its old form is 
logical, and the followers of this type of Christ- 
ianity are justified in their life-and -death struggle 
for what they believe to be the fundamental princi- 
ple. One may even admire the conscientiousness 
of one whom I know who will not associate with 
an old-time friend because the friend no longer 
accepts the atonement in just her way. To such 
a zealot it seems like disloyalty to her Lord to be in 
the presence of such a disbeliever, although one 
might remind her that Jesus expressly chose the 



382 Man and the Divine Order 

company of sinners ; that his faith was inclusive, 
not exclusive. 

But our concern is to interpret the sayings of 
Jesus, not to call other people to account. If it be 
true that the "letter killeth" while "the Spirit 
giveth life," we must choose whom we will serve, 
and estimate the entire doctrine accordingly. 
Jesus assures us that he came to "bring life and 
immortality to light." Let us then take him at 
his word. He also declared that the truth should 
set men free. We may confidently assume, then, 
that Jesus' mission was to tell men the truth about 
life. * 

Did he begin by informing people that man is 
"a miserable sinner with no help in him"? No; 
he said, " The kingdom of heaven is at hand." He 
brought glad tidings. He sought to awaken men 
to the knowledge of those things of which they 
were ignorant. Recognising that man was in the 
darkness and did not know it, he did not condemn 
but brought light. He made clear a definite law, 
namely, the law of the kingdom, outlined above. 
If man would obey the conditions, the desired re- 
sults would follow ; if he refused to obey he would 
not obtain the results. That indicated that man 
was to take a certain initiative — pay a certain 
price. 

Jesus makes this law clear by a number of illus- 
trations. If we display mercy, we obtain it. If 



Christianity 383 

we are just, justice comes back to us. If we mis- 
judge, we shall be misjudged. If evil things come 
out from within, the outer life will be defiled. To 
live a pure life, we must first have a pure heart. 
We cannot even harbour anger without reaping 
the consequences. The law is inexorable. Not in 
one jot or tittle can it be evaded. 

Yet love is here, too, for when a man comes to 
judgment he learns that by adaptation to the 
same law he can ''make for righteousness," can 
turn all to love. " Give, and it shall be given unto 
you." "Ask, and you shall receive." The law 
is perfect, universal. The whole difficulty is that 
man has been ignorant of it, and, ignorant, has 
misspent his energies. He has thought that he 
could be great by himself; that he could buy a 
place in the kingdom. He must find out that 
there is but one road to the highest, namely, the 
will of God, the way of the divine order. 

Others had made clear the law of cause and 
effect ages before. Judged by the letter, some of 
the sayings of Jesus were not new. The difference 
was that where others beheld the law, Jesus took 
the hardest of all steps, that is, he took the initiat- 
ive in showing by his conduct that he really be- 
lieved the law to the last word. If he had faltered 
where others to whom the alternatives were pre- 
sented had faltered, his life would have made no 
more impression than the lives of hundreds of 



384 Man and the Divine Order 

saints and seers who belong to the level to which 
those who judge by the letter consign Jesus. But 
Jesus was faithful even unto the end, and he met 
crucifixion at the hands of his enemies as he had 
all along met their revilings and persecutions. 
He was faithful in thought, word, and deed, and 
displayed barely enough of the finite to let us 
know that he was human. We have the record 
of his triumphant experience when he gave up the 
last human inclination in favour of the will of the 
Father. Thus we have the perfect example, so 
far as human life has revealed perfection. Had 
we not had the life of Jesus on earth we should 
not have known the highest law. Otherwise we 
should have had merely the perception of the 
law without the life which proves it. The theory 
is not enough ; it is the life that convinces. It is 
the power of a life, true in every detail to its pro- 
testations, which sent out the marvellous power 
into the world to which the wonderful growth of 
the Christian centuries is due. 

If the law of the divine order is perfect, we of 
course expect that men will be enlightened con- 
cerning " the way, the truth, and the life." There 
are obviously lessons to be learned from ignorant 
blundering, but the God of love would not always 
let men blunder. God so loved the world of His 
human children, that He sent the divinest light 
into the world to make clear the way. Jesus re- 



Christianity 385 

vealed the way whereby all could be free from 
the bondage of ignorance, if they would take up 
the cross and follow him. Notice the condition 
again, — if they would " take up the cross." Thau 
obviously means that each man must make the 
supreme move which Jesus made, from the per- 
sonal to the divine. Once more the responsibility 
is placed on man. 

Of course, if " God is love," there are no ''lost" 
souls in the literal sense of the word, although 
many may be almost infinitely removed from the 
knowledge of the truth which sets men free. And, 
since God is love, He is not the angry Yahveh of a 
former generation who demands a sacrifice. The 
idea of offering up a human being in this way be- 
longs to savage times, when men thought they 
must render tribute to the gods to win their favour. 
It shows enormous disrespect to the God of love to 
think that He demanded a propitiatory offering. 
It would be difficult to give to any of Jesus' say- 
ings any such barbarous meaning. Furthermore 
a God of love is "no respecter of persons." He is 
the Father of the people ; there are no ' ' elect ' ' or 
"damned." If is not a question of fate, but of a 
way open before those who choose to walk in it. 

Recollect, then, that Jesus came to bring life to 
light, the life of a higher order. It was his fidelity 
to the ideal of that life that saved men (those who 
followed his example), not the death, but the life. 



386 Man and the Divine Order 

The way of the cross, then, is the way of life. 
Either we must believe this, or doubt Jesus when 
he said that he came "that men might have life 
and have it more abundantly." 

The truth in the doctrine of atonement, then, is 
the law of adjustment to the divine will. When 
man wanders away and seeks to be something by 
himself, freedom from the bondage thus created is 
to be found by returning to the Father's house. 
It is through oneness, that is, harmony with God, 
that freedom is attained. The man, for instance, 
who has brought disease upon himself by a riotous 
life will find health if he once more obeys the con- 
ditions of wise natural existence, in other words, 
the law or will of God in that respect. Jesus had 
attained the level where all things are harmoni- 
ous, and the secret of that harmony was oneness 
of will with the divine will. 

The atonement must be restated in wholly 
positive terms. Jesus came into the world to 
show mankind how to live the perfect life. 
The way which he made clear by living it was 
adjustment to the divine tendency in the total 
universe, the law of growth and fulness of co- 
operation with the divine ideal. There was great 
sacrifice involved, but it was not a negative sacri- 
fice. It was positive devotion to the ideal of the 
kingdom. 

Is there no truth, then, in the theory of the 



Christianity 387 

divine grace? Unquestionably. Jesus does not 
say that everything depends on merely human 
conduct. He calls attention to that as the essen- 
tial without which the other things shall not be 
added. // man is willing to pay the price, then 
much will follow which is not in the power of man 
to give. 

Perhaps the best way to illustrate the principle 
of the new birth is by comparison with the attain- 
ments of self -consciousness. How far can intro- 
spection be profitably carried? Try to carry it 
to its extreme limits and you will find yourself 
imprisoned in your own finite states. You tried to 
find your soul, and you found a point, a painful 
point. Analyse love, and you find nought under 
your introspective microscope. But feel love for 
some one, manifest your heart in deeds of devoted 
service, and you shall know by loving what love is. 
The highest that is in us hides when analytically 
pursued. Too much self-analysis stultifies all en- 
deavour. Our spontaneous actions reveal ele- 
ments which we never planned to put in. If we 
self-consciously say to ourselves, "Now on such a 
day I will be divinely inspired," the inspiration 
does not come. The law of the unexpected is 
a higher law than that of any self-conscious at- 
tainment. We mount to heaven on "the stair- 
way of surprise." The kingdom cometh " without 
observation." 



388 Man and the Divine Order 

In that wonderful passage where the coming of 
Nicodemus in the night is described, Jesus says 
that "the wind bloweth where it listeth, and 
thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell 
whence it cometh and whither it goeth : so is every 
one that is born of the Spirit. ' ' He says that man 
must be born from " above," not " again," as mis- 
translated. That is, there is a higher manifesta- 
tion of the Spirit than that which has come from 
below in the long evolution of life. The purest 
revelation is from above, at a time when man least 
expects it. Without this we could never attain 
the Christ life. It is literally a new birth, a fresh 
start in life. Granted this, and anything may 
follow, for the new birth affects man's entire nature. 
There is not only spiritual illumination, but intel- 
lectual quickening and physical re-creation. The 
new birth is part of the great creative process of 
the universe. Thus the divine grace has its place 
as securely as in the old orthodoxy. But it is 
not the grace of election or foreordination. The 
divine grace is for all men, for God is a God of 
love. But the divine grace would have no signifi- 
cance if it were forced upon men. It comes as a 
gift. One is free to turn aside. Many of those 
who have attained great spiritual heights freely 
confess that they denied the Father long ere they 
finally accepted Him. The divine Spirit is even 
now constantly breathing upon every human soul, 



Christianity 389 

but few are they who are willing to pay the price of 
fidelity to it. If there be any unpardonable sin, 
it is the sin of non-receptivity. 

Thus every essential in the orthodox faith is 
preserved, even the idea of a sudden conversion, 
for the bud of the spiritual growth within us may 
burst suddenly when the Spirit is perceived by the 
willing soul, and when all other courses have been 
abandoned. The spirit of Christianity remains 
throughout all change ; it is only the wording of it 
that changes from age to age. 

3. The third great point is the law of change 
from within outward. Salvation not only begins 
with the individual, but it begins within. Jesus 
counsels men to enter into the secret place of the 
Most High, to close the door upon the outer world, 
and there, in the solitude of the heart, attain that 
adjustment with the divine will from which all 
things will follow in the world of our outer life. 
He further assures us that it is not necessary to ask 
for special things, or gifts, for all things have been 
provided in the divine order. There is guidance 
for each soul. It is only necessary to put one's 
self in the right attitude, then be faithful to each 
specific prompting. 

Here is the crucial point. It requires great 
faith to live in this practical world — where every 
one wants to know where his money is com- 
ing from — with entire independence of the world's 



39° Man and the Divine Order 

standards. Many who follow Jesus to this point 
would discard his teachings as impractical here. 
They would insist that there is no evidence of any 
such law; that every man must shift for himself 
with no assurance that there is anything to keep 
him from starvation. 

To this one can only reply, " Then the Spirit has 
not yet breathed upon this man so that he knows 
the law." But oh, the wonder and beauty of that 
marvellous provision, that detailed guidance which 
applies to every possible situation in life! Only 
those know the law in this fuller sense who have 
seen the promise fulfilled — then what a mass of 
evidence ! The peculiarity of the situation is that 
to have the proof one must put one's faith to the 
test in a way that the sceptics are unwilling to 
venture. He who does not trust God is practi- 
cally an atheist. He who does trust God has to 
venture everything in the world. 

For example, it requires great faith to go before 
a company of people to speak about the spiritual 
life without previous preparation. Yet those who 
make the venture assure us that it is literally true 
that what one shall speak is ''given in that hour." 
Doubt that the way will open for the realisation 
of the soul's visions is usually founded on impa- 
tience. We want the kingdom to come in our way, 
rather than according to the divine order. There- 
fore we push, heave sighs, and waste energy. 



Christianity 39 * 

Again, stress is placed on environment instead of 
on the forces of the inner life. It is argued that we 
cannot be Christians until this present commercial 
age has passed, and man is economically free. 
But what is life for? If it be for the rearing 
of souls, if character grows under adversity, we 
ought to rejoice in the present hard conditions. 

4. This brings us to the next great point, namely, 
that Christianity is social. The discovery of the 
kingdom within must come first, the individual 
must come to judgment for and by himself ; but he 
must not pause there. Man is to seek the soli- 
tudes of the inner life that he may find the guidance 
which prepares the way for his social existence. 
The first test is his willingness to forego all for the 
Spirit, the next is to trust all to the Spirit, and the 
third is to love all mankind as brothers, to live for 
all, serve all. 

For man is not only an individual soul, but a 
social being. He is nothing of and by himself, 
for he is an organic unit ; all men are bound each 
to each, all are members of one another. This is 
the more positive side of the renunciation of self. 
All that one gives up individually is given back 
socially, enriched an hundred-fold. The Christian 
socialist is indeed right in insisting that the final 
test of Christianity is social. This is especially the 
age of recognition of that great fact. The point 
of difference is that since Jesus placed emphasis 



39 2 Man and the Divine Order 

upon the Spirit rather than on the letter, on the 
kingdom which cometh without observation, on 
the realm within where all things have been pro- 
vided, the true follower of him cannot place the 
alteration of the social order first, but must begin 
by fidelity to the Spirit, by manifesting love in 
any situation in which he finds himself, whether it 
seem to be favourable or unfavourable. 

If "all things have been provided," the social 
readjustment of environments is included. No 
man as yet fully believes in the spiritual law who is 
unwilling to let justice come in its own way. If 
justice is primarily spiritual it is not likely to come 
in the way on which the majority of social reform- 
ers insist. Many place stress upon material con- 
ditions. There is great complaint because some 
have more than others of this world's goods. But 
again we must insist that to be a Christian is to 
make a choice. Jesus even commends the poor 
man. It may be that precisely in these adverse 
material conditions one shall have that opportun- 
ity which above all others makes the supreme 
triumph possible. There are greater temptations 
in these days. So may there be better Christians. 
Jesus says nothing about waiting until we can 
be Christians. A man may be a Christian in any 
situation. The ideal is to be superior to the ma- 
terial condition. If the spiritual comes first in the 
order of being, nothing, no economic order, can 



Christianity 393 

stand in the way. What the individual cannot do 
the grace of God can do. To make the supreme 
consecration of all that one is and all that one 
possesses is to receive the help of the Spirit, what- 
ever the environing condition. And possibly it is 
harder for the capitalist to take the great step than 
for the down-trodden labourer who cries out that 
he can do nothing under oppression. 

5. The fifth great point is that the kingdom 
comes gradually and in little ways. The old idea 
of sudden conversion, of belief which settled salva- 
tion once for all, was consistent with the thought of 
God as an external Creator who made the world in 
six days, or six thousand years, and then retired to 
watch it and keep it at a distance. The new con- 
ception of God takes its clue from evolution, the 
painstaking law of transformation, in which there 
are no leaps, and nothing sudden. Throughout all 
the ages God has been making, is still making the 
world. The most trivial social change of to-day 
is as consequential as the physical change of a 
million years ago. Not reformation, then, as the 
socialist says; not revolution, as the anarchist 
says, but imperceptible growth from within, is 
the great social law. Each individual must come 
to judgment, attain adjustment, and become one 
more centre for the growth of the kingdom. The 
larger social results must come as the greater or 
the smaller individual deeds. Here is the crucial 



394 Man and the Divine Order 

point. The life which makes man a Christian is 
spread out over his whole career. No one deed 
saves him, although a single heroic deed may be 
the turning-point. It is the daily life of years and 
years which shows whether or not he is really a 
Christian. The process is not so easy and simple 
as it once seemed. It is the little thoughts, words, 
and deeds which come out from within, one by one, 
which at last uplift a man and make him truly 
regenerate. 

6. The next great point is that Christianity is 
practical. Jesus proved that what he taught was 
applicable to any situation by actually applying it. 
When any one in need of light came to him he gave 
freely. When he met the sinner he manifested 
the love which helps the sinner on his weary path. 
The sick he healed, the dead in consciousness he 
quickened, and the social group he addressed ac- 
cording to its needs, whether or not his judgment 
was popular. He met his age where he found 
it, and in every recorded instance unflinchingly 
stood for the will of God. His doctrine was 
throughout the practicality of life, not the applica- 
tion of a doctrine reasoned out in advance of ex- 
perience. Therefore to know whether or not it is 
practical for you, you must test it by actual life ; 
you should not expect to know all till you have 
lived all. But be sure that you are testing the 
spirit of a precept, not its letter. Do not, for 



Christianity 395 

example, be negatively non-resistant; "overcome 
evil with good." 

These, then, are the main points. The kingdom 
of God is to be found within, where all things have 
been provided, where the will of the Father is to be 
learned, where entire consecration is to take place. 
The soul must understand the law and make actual 
effort to overcome self, and to live by the law. 
Then the kingdom of God is to be found in hu- 
manity, as the law of love, service. Finally, the 
kingdom is to be recognised as universal, and by 
thought, word, and deed social man is to attain 
complete adjustment to the law of righteousness. 
Christianity is an empirical system: "By their 
fruits ye shall know them." It implies that the 
divine order, socially considered, is a pluralism, 
that is, a republic of souls owning one Father — ■ 
not a pantheistic whole in which all is one solid 
mass. God and the sons of God, existing in a 
heavenly order— this is the Christian conception, 
this is the kingdom which Jesus said was "at 
hand." 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE IDEA OF GOD 

THE character of the Supreme Being is at once 
the easiest and the most difficult subject ever 
considered by the human mind. Every sentence 
we utter implies the existence of God. We could 
not leave Him out if we would. Yet the most we 
can say of nearly all theories of the divine nature 
is that they are man's ideas printed in larger 
type. Is it worth while to attempt to tran- 
scend temperamental limitations, when so many 
have failed? Possibly we may at least learn the 
lesson of these failures. In so far as we have 
found a clue to the character of the divine order 
we may surely avoid anthropomorphism. Even 
the attempt to prove God's existence is instructive ; 
for, as our own consciousness must be prior to the 
endeavour to understand it, so the existence of 
God is prior to all theology ; hence we know that 
the divine existence is a gift of experience. Again, 
the analysis of mysticism shows that, despite the 
shortcomings of its devotees, we must acknowledge 
the profound truth of spiritual immediacy. If 

396 



The Idea of God 397 

reason fails us at certain points, we know that the 
greater truth requires both feeling and thought to 
declare its glory. Granted a certain religious con- 
sciousness, or sense of the divine, the province of 
theology is to awaken the mind to fuller recogni- 
tion of that presence which needs neither logic nor 
miracle to prove it. Unless we have direct evid- 
ence in our lives of a higher Power, the profound- 
est reasoning may seem shallow. On the other 
hand, the tests of critical thought may greatly en- 
rich the saner religious sentiments. One should 
not expect to develop the idea of God by any 
single process. It is as important to deepen the 
realisation of what it means to live with God as to 
discover the reasons for such faith. The empirical 
method ought to supplement the method of con- 
structive thought. Therefore one should fre- 
quently consult one's inner consciousness and ask 
if the idea of God in question appeals to the 
spiritual sense as true. This is the profoundest 
experiment in the laboratory of the soul. 

A profitable way to approach the larger thought 
of God is to analyse some of the outgrown notions, 
for example, the popular conception of "the plan 
of God." Finding that the natural world is an 
exact system, where all things act in accordance 
with law, where there is instinct, adaptation to 
ends, man reasons that there must have been a 
plan as the basis of this marvellous design. Let 



39$ Man and the Divine Order 

us see what this idea implies. A plan implies 
a beginning at some point in time. It would 
obviously be absurd to speak of design if the 
world be eternal. A design implies a looking for- 
ward, the adoption of the wisest means for the 
attainment of a given end. That the end may be 
attained, the entire intermediate process must be 
foreseen and determined. Such foresight would 
involve selection here, rejection there. This must 
not be too strong, for it is to go with that. That 
must be adapted to somewhat else. There must 
be infinite choice in infinite detail. Unless God 
should know all possibilities and could guard 
against certain contingencies, the ultimate end 
would not be assured. A God who should be 
ignorant of these possibilities would have only a 
limited range of knowledge; He would not be 
the infinite Creator which this conception declares 
Him to be, nor would He be omniscient. It there- 
fore incontrovertibly follows that a God with a 
plan is a God with power of choice. Time was 
when God, alone, at rest, said to Himself, "Let 
us create a world." Accordingly the process of 
thought began by which the wisest plan was se- 
lected. Forthwith the creative fiats were issued, 
and behold, the world ! 

This paragraph is scarcely finished before we 
see that this is the theory which prevailed in the 
century previous to the rise of the philosophy of 



The Idea of God 399 

evolution. That this doctrine is hopelessly anti- 
quated is to-day a truism. It was in fact anti- 
quated before it was proposed. Ages before the 
Christian era profound Greek philosophers main- 
tained that the world was eternal. The early 
Christian philosophers rejected the larger world- 
theory because it did not harmonise with their 
interpretation of Christian cosmology. But what 
degeneration was there! For the eternal world, 
creation was substituted ; for the theory of many 
worlds, the earth as the centre of all things. In- 
stead of the philosophical Being, the world was 
given the Hebrew tribal deity, Yahveh; instead 
of beauty, asceticism; instead of the Socratic 
method of truth-seeking, dogma was brought for- 
ward; and the world lost for the time many 
scientific and philosophical doctrines. It was 
centuries before the inferiority of the creation 
theory was seen, and then it was a long fight before 
man won the right to think scientifically, without 
regard to the dogmas of the Church. But finally 
the learned world has adopted a theory which is 
much more akin to the Greek conception. The 
real Christianity is, however, just as true when 
viewed in relation to this larger cosmology. 

From the modern point of view, the universe is 
eternal and indestructible. That is, the world- 
energy is eternally conserved, however much the 
particular worlds may vary. The forces of nature 



400 Man and the Divine Order 

have always been active in some form. There has 
been some sort of evolution, though a planet like 
our own may not always have existed. No hypo- 
thesis is needed to account for the origin of the 
forces whose activity and form we call matter. 
Philosophically speaking, they are part of the life 
of God, and God has always lived. We know no 
God other than the God of action, therefore we 
need form no other conception. Our idea of Him 
must at least be as comprehensive as the evolu- 
tions of the eternal energy whose activity modern 
science describes. 

The conclusion that God is larger than the con- 
ception known as ' ' deism " is further strengthened 
by consideration of the supposed precosmic con- 
dition of God. If the Creator foresaw every detail 
and predetermined the "plan" in all its parts, it 
follows that there never could be an event which 
would contain the least atom of novelty in the 
wide, wide universe. If this be all there is in 
the world, why should God subject Himself to the 
dreary unfolding of the plan which He perfectly 
foresaw? The hypothesis is absurd. There must 
be meaning, growth in the universe. The theory 
of design is an inadequate account of the world as 
we find it, for in the world we find human free- 
dom, choice, experience, and the moral law. 

If everything were predetermined, there could 
never be any activity except the buzz and hum 



The Idea of God 401 

of a smooth-running machine. All supposed be- 
ings would be automata. But to exist means for 
a being to be conscious and to act. The posses- 
sion of consciousness means something private, 
individual, as well as something social. The real 
value in life as we find it in the divine order is 
the power of variation and initiative which we find 
ourselves possessing. In other words, there are 
alternatives, details which are undecided, details 
which we as human beings must decide. Life is 
rich. There is more than one way to the same 
end. Since there is indetermination, 1 alternatives 
that have not been decided, combinations that 
have not been yet tried, music that has not yet been 
made, — though of the same notes, — there can 
be no hard-and-fast world-plan. The persistence 
of certain permanent relations, modes, and attri- 
butes is very different from a plan conceived by a 
builder in the realm of time. 

If a world of some sort has always existed, there 
is no need of a theory of final causes. Teleology 
gives place to description. It is a question of the 
relation between ground and content. In the last 
analysis the divine order is eternal; its constitu- 
tion is what it is because God is what He is ; for 
the divine order is the field of activity and self- 
expression of God. God is, always was, and ever 
will be. It is not necessary to account for Him, 

1 See James, The Will to Believe. 
26 



4o2 Man and the Divine Order 

for He is the eternal Reason which accounts for 
everything. He is in no sense to be described by 
negative terms, for when language fails that failure 
does not signify that God is less, but more, than 
the words imply. He is the source of every quality 
and the ground of every relation in the total uni- 
verse. He is not alone what we mean when we 
inadequately name Him Creator, Father, but in- 
finitely more. In deepest truth He is the reality 
that is implied in all our attempts to prove His 
being. Our arguments from design fail because 
the eternity of His universe surpasses what our 
poor temporal words convey when we attribute to 
Him a "plan." 

The nature of the divine order at large is thus 
a direct clue to the nature of God. Whatever 
exists within that order must have its ground in 
the divine character. The divine order is itself 
the system of the divine life. The simplest inci- 
dent in e very-day life is a revelation of the divine. 
That is to say, since everything is in some sense 
real, whatever we behold, all that we experience, 
bears direct relation to the eternal order of things. 
When we look forth upon the fertile fields and 
the distant hills, when we reflect on the regularity 
of the seasons and the marvellous adaptations of 
nature, there is no reason to suppose that all this 
is so far removed from reality that we must call it 
a " shadow," or conclude that some " unknowable " 



The Idea of God 403 

cause has given rise to it. Yonder tree is a real 
tree ; it exists for God as well as for man and other 
beings. The laws of its growth are divine laws. 
Its beauty is part of the divine beauty. Its cause 
is plainly revealed by its structure and its history. 
The life and wisdom of God may be read in part 
by studying the existence of that tree. It would 
be absurd to separate it, even in thought, from the 
divine nature. 

The only word of caution is this : If you would 
really know the character of God you must not 
study that tree alone, but everything that exists. 
When we discover that the visible world does not 
exist by itself but is related to an eternal order, 
we must regard that eternal life as the true clue 
to its cause. The argument from design fails be- 
cause "design" implies a very limited affair in a 
strictly temporal sense. But what was supposed 
to be true of a fragment of the temporal world 
may still be true of the great totality of the eternal 
world. That is to say, God did not formulate a 
little "plan" six thousand years ago and then 
retire to observe its development. God is always 
sending His life forth in creative action ; there is no 
beginning or ending. The universe at all moments 
is an expression of the divine nature. Expression, 
not creation, is the great law. God is already 
here; God is reason, wisdom, power. The divine 
order is the rationality of His life. The wonderful 



404 Man and the Divine Order 

facts which have called forth the admiration of 
men, and led them to conceive of God as Creator, 
are eternal revelations of His intelligence. 

When our investigations lead to the conclusion 
that there must be a basis for all appearances we 
know that the divine order is such as to hold just 
those appearances. When we discover the law of 
evolution and learn that evolution must have a 
field of action and habit-forming forces, we know 
that the divine order is in part just that field, 
the source of those forces. The facts of individ- 
ual consciousness lead truly and definitely to the 
ultimate constitution of things, so do the data of 
our moral and social experience. It is not the 
mass of facts which gives the clue. The divine 
order is far more than the quantitative sum of 
all things. It is rather the quality of things and 
their principle of organisation. That is, when we 
find that in the physical world we have one system 
of qualities, in the mental world another, and in 
the moral world a third ; when we discover that the 
present life -round is only part of life, that both the 
abiding and the transient are needed — from these 
coexistent systems of facts, with their laws, we 
may safely reason that the divine order is their 
harmonious source. Furthermore, as the divine 
order is thus complex, a system of systems, 
qualities, and relations, it follows that the nature 
of God is no less wealthy. For, logically speaking, 



The Idea of God 405 

God is precisely the supreme reality needed to ac- 
count for the given universe. With a God not 
concretely called for by the facts we have nothing 
to do. 

It would be most inadequate to judge the divine 
character by any particular scheme, such as the 
orthodox plan of salvation. For the universe is 
large, resourceful, and fulfils many ends. The 
existence of nature with all its species of plants 
and animals, its beauty and system, is plainly one 
of those ends. Man's physical life in the enjoy- 
ment of nature is undoubtedly another. From 
one point of view, nothing is nobler than to make 
man's life on earth more pleasant. If man also 
develops character, that is another end. Artistic 
self-expression is another; so is the pursuit of 
scientific truth. To look out on the fair world of 
nature with unprejudiced eyes, and consider the 
vast numbers of things that are worth doing, is to 
realise by contrast the poverty, the unhealthiness 
of that doctrine which tries to account for life in 
terms of "salvation." When one's thought rises 
to the dignity of the divine order, it seems puerile 
to declare that life exists for any purpose short of 
life itself in its richly varied totality. The divine 
order is its own reason for being. It is futile to 
assign any ulterior end, for it reveals the law and 
life of the Being of beings, whose nature it is to 
manifest Himself. So far as the divine order is 



406 Man and the Divine Order 

purposive we can only say that it exists because 
God would be imperfect alone; God's perfection 
is made complete through the eternity of the 
divine order. 

Since the unity of the divine order is a harmony 
of different systems, we may rightly conclude that 
the divine nature is a balanced character, a rela- 
tionship of qualities, not a mere sameness like the 
pure white ray in which all colours are lost. Our 
God is not a monotonous " Absolute," who absorbs 
all things into Himself ; He is a God of infinite 
differences, and the differences are neither lost 
nor transcended. The supposed "Absolute" of 
speculative metaphysics is not really God, but the 
huge totality. The divine order is not simply 
God; you and I are not God. The divine order 
reveals God, and is the home, the republic of all 
finite souls. Individuality is not only of worth in 
itself but is absolutely essential to the divine order. 
Were God the speculative "Absolute" He would 
need no divine order. 

God is the universal Being, the Father-Spirit. 
Man, the particular being, reproduces the univer- 
sal from a single point of view. You and I in part 
fulfil the life of God, but we also realise our own 
ideals. Nature reproduces itself in man, and God 
is revealed in man, but each in a peculiar way ful- 
fils its own purpose. Hence there is positive 
value in the forward pulse of things. Each new 



The Idea of God 407 

moment is in truth a new event in the divine life ; 
not a mechanical unfolding of some predestined 
" plan. " In a profound sense, the universe reveals 
God in action, God achieving something. The 
nature of the world is not simply determined by 
the divine nature, but is a result of the divine will 
in so far as that will organises the divine ideas. 
Wise and orderly, the divine nature must, of course, 
reveal itself in a certain way. But that does not 
mean that God is bound by severe necessity, that 
He can introduce no changes. Nor does it mean 
that He foreknows and determines every detail. 
All that reason demands is that the divine nature 
itself shall not change, that reason shall still be 
reason. 

We may then say that as the divine nature is 
many-sided, wealthy, there is organic interaction 
in the life of God. Love prompts and wisdom 
guides. . The divine life is harmonious, rhythm- 
ical, systematic. It is not like emotion or mere 
pleasure — without a principle of organisation. It 
is a rational, orderly life. God is good, and His uni- 
versal order is organised for the good. Hence the 
good is not a negation, not an indescribable or mys- 
tical good. It is a clearly defined, wealthy good. 

As Spirit, God may be said to be without form, 
but the supreme life which all forms reveal. Yet 
Spirit is undefined, not the indefinable. We are 
unable fully to define Spirit by itself, because 



4o8 Man and the Divine Order 

Spirit without form does not exist. Order, reason, 
is the form; Spirit is the life, the love. Only 
when the two are apprehended together do we 
have a true idea of God. Hence it is clear why 
mysticism has failed when it sought to describe 
Spirit by itself. 

To speak truly, we must say that God is at once 
Spirit and Form, Love and Reason. The divine 
love and wisdom are inseparable : power and 
beauty go together. The perfect peace of God 
is made possible by the perfect beauty, order, or- 
ganisation. The infinite tenderness of His mother- 
hood exists by virtue of the surpassing strength 
of His fatherhood. There is, of course, an eter- 
nal centre or basis of unity of the many attri- 
butes and modes. God is always love, always 
power, ever wise, ever orderly, beautiful, true, 
beneficent, just. That is, justice, order, beauty, 
reigns at the centre and as an ideal, although the 
temporal attainment of justice, for example, may 
be long delayed. Hence God is in a sense tran- 
scendent. As transcendent, He is essentially un- 
changeable. That He is thus immutable is clear 
from the consideration that pure evolutionism or 
perpetual flux is inadequate when applied to the 
universe as a whole. If all were in perpetual flux, 
God would be through and through unstable. We 
would then have to say with Heracleitus, " Every- 
thing flows." It would also follow that there is 



The Idea of God 409 

no finite soul — only passing thoughts, feelings, and 
transmitted deeds, ''Karma," as in the Buddhistic 
psychology. There would be mere progress with- 
out a being to progress, no God to centralise that 
progress, and no purpose in any part. 

At the centre of all there must be immutability 
of some sort, undisturbed repose. But this need 
not be immutability in the absolute sense, as some 
theorists describe it. Immutability would be in- 
expressibly dreary if it were absolute. It is im- 
mutability with reference to the world of time, 
change, and finite experience. The divine un- 
changeableness is organic. Its complement is the 
Spirit in action. The permanent would be as 
incomplete without the transient as the latter 
without the former. God is free to express Him- 
self, to act ; yet God is always God ; to-day har- 
monises with yesterday and will harmonise with 
all possible to-morrows. Along with any display 
of power, side by side with the transient, the per- 
manent is seen. God is not immutable in one 
place, far off in the heavens, and active in another. 
The great Identity is here, there, everywhere, per- 
sistent through difference. The permanent is in 
the transient, and the transient is in the per- 
manent. Every moment has its basis, each place 
its ground in the Father. Amidst the worst storm 
there is the calm spot of the peace of God. In the 
greatest instability of nature God is there. 



4IO Man and the Divine Order 

Each event is thus a centre of energy in the 
divine life. God must be present at every point 
in order to be present at any point. Time is His 
measured activity. Space is one of His forms of 
objectification. There is one far-off yet ever near 
divine Life whose nature is both to be and to do, 
both to know and to act. The "immanent God" 
is the same Being, working through, active within 
His universe. That is to say, God is not apart from 
His world, nor does He work without concrete 
objects. Whatever exists, receives its nature and 
life from God. God is now and always the life, 
the power of energy resident in matter and in 
consciousness. Every study of evolution is in 
part a study of the life of God ; every datum of 
consciousness is a gift from Him. 

The present conception differs from the merely 
immanental theory, since it reserves room for God 
unmanifested. That is, God does not exhaust 
Himself in His world-activity; He is not merely 
the life or substance of the universe. He also 
transcends, is larger than, the world. This con- 
ception is also differentiated from pantheism in all 
of its forms. It does not assert that God is the 
world, either viewed as nature, as consciousness, or 
as the spiritual unity of nature and consciousness. 
The world reveals God, is part of God's activity; 
but it is not all of God, therefore is not the same as 
God. Yet one would like to bring God as near as 



The Idea of God 4 11 

pantheism does when it worships nature as God, 
or identifies the mystical experience with Him. 
Many who write of God's immanence employ 
decidedly pantheistic statements, so that some 
critics have classed certain immanental theories 
as pantheistic. But this resemblance to panthe- 
ism is verbal, not intentional. The writers are so 
eager to express the union of God and man that 
they inadvertently fall into pantheistic speech. 

The present theory may for convenience be 
called organic theism, that is, God is regarded as 
Father-Spirit amid many son-spirits or moral in- 
dividuals. He is a Being whom one can love and 
worship. 

In a theistic world, the distinctions between 
souls and the world are real, continuous. The 
sons of God, while not separated from God, do not 
become God, any more than a human father ab- 
sorbs his child. In the soul's highest visions the 
Father may indeed recognise Himself in part ; but 
that is far from being an exhaustive statement of 
the vision, for the individual point of view has 
permanent worth in itself. To say that God is 
resident in the world of our consciousness, that He 
is the Life of our life, is not, therefore, to main- 
tain, that the life that is immanent in us is all 
there is in the human self. In this inquiry we 
are seeking to be true to all phases of life, and 
the facts point to the existence of finite selves as 



4i2 Man and the Divine Order 

surely as they point to the being of God. Each of 
■us is a centre of consciousness, of choice, freedom, 
activity; each is an individual with desires, as- 
pirations and a meaning ; and we must find place 
for all these personal data, all our social rela- 
tions, as well as a place for our relationship with 
God. There are many coexistent experiences 
within the same field. 

No prophetical theory of an atonement or re- 
conciliation can be adequate. Just what it means 
to be united in will, in spirit with God, we shall not 
know until we are so united. Fully to know is 
first fully to be. All that we now need to say is, 
There is God, and also His republic of souls, ad- 
vancing into fuller knowledge of their relation to 
Him. The sons of God are on the road to higher 
adjustment with Him, as they are also on the road 
to fuller moral adjustment with one another. In 
other words, God has a many-sided experience in 
relation to us and to His world ; and we have our 
individual experiences. We know not how far 
these experiences coincide. My life is unlike 
yours, and I only know by inference that it is in 
any way like your life. I cannot transcend my- 
self and become you ; I can only picture to myself 
how you may possibly feel and think. My point 
of view is decidedly mine. It may be that in a 
sense it will always be distinctively mine, that 
even God may never see things as I do, because He 



The Idea of God 413 

has never had the experience. But that possi- 
bility need not trouble me, for if it be true, life 
may be all the richer. At any rate, there is a 
deep repugnance towards anything which savours 
of absorption. 

In so far as there are data which are not yet 
unified, we gladly hold them in solution. If we 
could now unify them all, our great pursuit would 
already be ended. If we tried to force all these 
data into a unitary system, the chances are that 
there would be many fragments left over. The 
history of philosophy shows that this has always 
been the result when men have tried to square 
their philosophic accounts. Our general conclu- 
sion is that it is impossible from one point of 
view alone to develop a satisfactory idea of God. 
If we conceive God as a Creator, we are disloyal 
to other aspects of the divine nature. If we define 
Him as "impersonal" we slight His fatherhood. 
If we deem Him one with our mystical vision, we 
neglect His revelation in the world of nature. To 
assert that He is merely nature is to overlook the 
truth of our higher spiritual experience. To say 
that He is simply immanent is to forget that He is 
also transcendent. To identify Him with will is 
to forget that He is wisdom. To declare that He 
is reason is to disregard the fact that He is love. 
To deem Him merely a larger soul among human 
souls is to be untrue to His greatness as the source 



414 Man and the Divine Order 

of the moral order and the spiritual unity of 
humanity. Thus, to define is to limit Him, yet in 
a sense all definitions are true. That is, we find 
the natural order, the moral order, the inde- 
pendence yet the sociality of man ; the temporal 
and the eternal; the changeable and the per- 
manent ; and we conclude that God is the ground 
of all these in such a way that none shall be in- 
jured or absorbed. The universe is many-sided, 
man is many-sided, therefore God is many-sided, 
organic. The ground is all that springs from it. 
The divine order is founded in the divine charac- 
ter. It is known by reason, revelation, religion, 
philosophy, art, service — all that constitutes life 
at its best, as well as through the miseries and 
struggles of our long animal and moral evolution. 
Nothing is excluded ; everything belongs within, 
nothing outside. The universe is both the inter- 
action of souls and the manifestation of God ; the 
mutual, objectified, organic experiences of the 
Father and the republic of all His creatures. 

Through our senses we perceive one phase of the 
divine order, through reason, the aesthetic sense, 
feeling, love, struggle, social life, yet other phases. 
No part of our experience is merely a dream, every 
thought is a revelation of God. It is impossible 
to understand the divine order physically, because 
it is more than physical. It is impossible to grasp 
it scientifically, for science does not include all of 



The Idea of God 415 

life ; the divine order exists not alone for truth but 
for beauty. Nor can it be circumscribed in terms 
of morality. We must know it in organic rela- 
tion, we must be as multi-organic as possible, in as 
many-sided adjustment as possible. To be sound 
physically, intellectually, morally; to be artistic, 
philosophical, altruistic ; to be Christlike, is to pos- 
sess in one's self so many clues to the character 
of God. God is at once the true, the beautiful, 
and the good ; the soul is also all of these ; and the 
soul, by being good, beautiful, and true, may know 
the goodness, truth, and beauty of God. True 
society is the organic fulfilment of all these. And 
to know the true God is at once to be all these in 
part, and through this manifoldness to share and 
thus far see the whole. The same limitations 
which seem to shut us out from knowledge of God 
prove to be revelations of Him when we behold 
their unity, when we see that it is just this rela- 
tional, organic character of our experience which 
makes knowledge of Him possible. Once learn 
that any definition of God is inadequate in part, 
yet true in part, and you begin to appreciate its 
organic value, you do not expect what it cannot 
give. Therefore rise to the thought of the uni- 
versal, and you shall feel that primal inspiration 
which you may express as truth, beauty, or good- 
ness, or all of these. The presence shall inspire 
you to artistic performance, to voice yourself in 



4i 6 Man and the Divine Order 

some form of rhythm, poetry, or music, to the 
inculcation of truth, or to service, according to 
your temperament, desire, or quickening. 

The present study of the divine nature is not 
meant to supersede previous discussions. In 
other volumes I have tried to suggest the intimate 
nearness of the divine Father, even at the risk of 
indulging in pantheistic language, and one of the 
volumes x is entirely devoted to the practice of the 
presence of God. Our present purpose is philo- 
sophical, namely, to render more explicit the idea 
of God implied in our studies of the divine order. 
When the soul longs for fellowship with the divine 
it is Jesus who best of all guides the way to the 
Father. Nothing can take the place of that per- 
sonal sense of the divine presence which makes 
Him in very truth our God. To behold is far 
more satisfying than to theorise. Yet, so rich is 
our life with Him that there is a part of our nature 
unsatisfied unless we also philosophically grasp 
what we have spiritually perceived. The idea of 
God is far inferior to the love of God; the life 
surpasses the doctrine. But more deeply to know 
is more truly to live. Thus the thought of the 
divine beauty is one more clue to that surpassing 
joy which is ever quickened within us when we 
lift our souls in worship and in prayer. 

1 Living by the Spirit. 



CHAPTER XIX 

CONSTRUCTIVE IDEALISM 

THE term "idealism" has two general meanings 
as ordinarily employed. It is frequently 
used to denote a certain type of philosophical 
theory, namely, the doctrine which describes 
experience in terms of consciousness, or ideas, 
rather than in terms of material things. Ber- 
keley's philosophy is an example of this type of 
idealism. The term also denotes any practical 
doctrine concerned with the inculcation of ideals. 
In art and literature, idealism is contrasted with 
realism and naturalism. In ethics, it denotes that 
type of moral theory which finds its highest sanc- 
tions in the intuitions or a priori laws of the in- 
ner life, as contrasted with evolutionary ethics. 
In philosophy, it is not only contrasted with 
materialism, but with realism and numerous un- 
critical systems, and is subdivided into a number 
of historical forms. Generally speaking, philo- 
sophical idealism is based on a critical examina- 
tion of the data of consciousness. In some of its 

forms the world is regarded as the expression of 
27 

417 



4-i8 Man and the Divine Order 

the idea of God. Other systems of idealism place 
more emphasis on the individual self. Idealism is 
not necessarily monistic, nor does it necessarily 
mean that nature is a shadow or illusion. As op- 
posed to the independence which materialism at- 
tributes to physical things, idealism declares that 
we know the world only through mind. But na- 
ture is not said to be less real because it is thus 
known. 

As here employed, the term will be used in both 
its practical and its philosophical sense. We hold 
that applicability to the practical issues of human 
life is one of the tests of philosophical idealism. 
On the other hand, we accept those ideals as truly 
practical which have undergone the tests of con- 
structively analytical thinking. The same analy- 
sis which proves that the world is apprehended by 
means of ideas is of practical value when regarded 
from another point of view, for that which is 
most profoundly true is must truly practical. To 
discover that life is known in terms of one kind 
of experience, namely, the relations and develop- 
ments of ideas, and to find the ultimate source of 
that experience in the divine life, is to possess 
knowledge of utmost value in daily life. Since 
experience possesses a system which reason can 
understand and make explicit, it also possesses an 
order which may be depended on in the realm of 
conduct. 



Constructive Idealism 4 X 9 

Idealism has sometimes ended in critically nega- 
tive analysis. Nowadays it is often identified 
with the problems of knowledge. Again, it is 
sometimes limited to the development of a theory 
of the "Absolute" in which all finite items of 
experience are harmonised, but which offers no 
assurance that things will turn out well in this 
world of ours. As opposed to these theoretical 
idealisms, the present doctrine is constructive in 
the largest sense. The present system is not an 
idealism of thought simply, but an idealism of ex- 
perience. That is to say, the primary evidence 
that there is a God is not the demand that there 
shall be a logical object of all completed thought. 
The first evidence is empirical. Reality is pri- 
marily immediate. The soul is in living relation 
with a higher order. The realm of feeling pos- 
sesses an authority of its own. Hence the office 
of thought is not simply to develop a theory 
which shall please itself. The true philosophy is 
at once empirical and constructive. It must 
satisfy not only the demands of thought, but the 
demands of the religious life and of every-day 
conduct. 

The first name chosen for the present system 
was " organic empiricism." The term "organic" 
was employed to denote the many-sidedness of 
experience, — the fact that no one department of 
life is the source of all truth, but truth must 



4 2 o Man and the Divine Order 

be a co-operative product; and "empiricism" 
denoted the tentative, changing, promising 
character of our many-sided experience. But 
"empirical idealism" is a better term, since ex- 
perience, although many-sided, is of one general 
type; it is an experience in terms of ideas. The 
term "constructive idealism" carries the defini- 
tion a stage farther; for, however varied expe- 
rience may be, and however much allowance one 
must make for future experience of other types, 
the final work of philosophy is to recast the data 
of experience in terms of constructive thought. 

The philosopher of pure experience might 
contend that experience as given is chaotic. We 
have, for example, now a sensation of heat, now 
a feeling of pleasure, now an angry sentiment, 
and now a thought of love. The world of our 
inner life is a mass of contending and contrasted 
mental states. Out of this mass each man may 
indeed construct his particular theory of unity or 
order, but that "construct" still remains his own. 
We find such uniformity in nature as we carry 
to nature. We know not what new type of ex- 
perience may upset all calculations. There is no 
single formula large enough to hold all types of 
individual truth. 

There is profound truth in these contentions, 
but it is possible to overestimate the importance 
of presented experience. Experience as given is 



Constructive Idealism 4 21 

always an item to be reckoned with. But the 
fact that the presented mass of our mental states 
is chaotic by no means shows that we cannot pass 
beyond the chaos. It is indeed true that each of 
us tends to reconstruct his own little world in 
terms of some kind of uniformity. It is true in 
a sense that even the uniformities on which all 
scientific theories depend are in part hypothetical 
conceptions. The great men of science are free 
to confess that nature is "practically uniform"; 
that the mechanical theory is far more exact than 
nature can be shown to be, but that does not 
prove that the orderliness of nature is subjective. 
It would be an enormous assumption to declare 
that experience does not possess a permanent 
order quite independent of our thought. 

Karl Pearson has written a large volume 1 to 
show that the facts with which science deals are 
our own sense-perceptions, while the theories of 
science are convenient formulas, shorthand ac- 
counts of those perceptions. But this is simply 
to make the first step towards idealism. No 
philosopher would be satisfied to stop with sen- 
sationalism. The fact that, as Professor Pearson 
admits, our sensations exemplify a certain order, 
immediately suggests the question, How happens 
it that experience possesses an order so exact that 
it can be described by mathematical formulas? 

1 The Grammar of Science, new edition, 1902. 



422 Man and the Divine Order 

To answer that question it is necessary to press 
far beyond the point where Pearson's book ends. 

Professor Ward's two volumes, Naturalism and 
Agnosticism, are in a sense an impeachment of 
scientific theories, since the exactness of those 
theories surpasses the verifiable exactness of na- 
ture, and since there are enormous gaps in mod- 
ern scientific explanation. But this arraignment 
shows rather the present inadequacy of science, and 
the failure of a few antiquated writers like Herbert 
Spencer. Philosophical idealism is still the con- 
clusion to which all such studies lead, and idealism 
must still await the completion of natural science 
before its own descriptions shall be complete. 

Professor James has pointed out that men of sci- 
ence, as well as religious and philosophical think- 
ers find as much unity and system in nature 
as they attribute to nature, and he is constantly 
calling attention to the fact that none of these 
unities is large enough to hold all that nature con- 
tains. Yet this consideration once more shows 
the surpassing wealth of nature. If nature fre- 
quently upsets our calculations, she also im- 
presses us by her stupendous orderliness. It is 
our own thought that is disjointed. 1 

1 It remains to be seen whether the "pluralism" of such 
philosophers as F. C. S. Schiller, Professors Howison and 
James, can be satisfactorily developed into a system. Thus 
far, the empirical pluralism of Professor James is the most 
promising. 



Constructive Idealism 423 

The orderliness of things may indeed seem 
chaos to us at first. Experience as immediately 
presented may reveal no intelligible principle, but 
that does not make against the reconstructive 
power of thought. The fact that presented sense- 
experience does not supply its own principle of 
organisation is one of the profoundest discoveries 
of idealism. Ever since the days of Plato it has 
been clear that nothing is intelligible as "given." 
Sensation is mere " knowledge of acquaintance," 
as Professor James calls it. It is subject to mani- 
fold illusions. Our emotional nature, for exam- 
ple, is the field of violent excesses. There are 
morbid mental and physical states to be elimin- 
ated. There are innumerable conflicting thoughts 
and feelings which demand analysis and a stand- 
ard of judgment. The imagination exaggerates 
and must be tempered. Intuition sees too much; 
prejudice distorts ; temperament deflects ; mysti- 
cism interferes. The intellect alone is cold and 
prosaically analytical. The heart is warm, but 
it is not the whole world. Everywhere in the 
mental world there is need of critical examination 
and reconstruction. When the utmost has been 
said in favour of the reality of immediacy, it is still 
true that thought adds a type of experience which 
must be taken account of in the final analysis. 

What shall be the principle of organisation? 
There cannot be the least doubt in regard to the 



424 Man and the Divine Order 

answer. It is reason — critical, comparative, con- 
structive. When we look forth upon the face of 
nature and inquire into its constitution and its 
laws, we discover that it has been here a very long, 
long while. Whether or not it was developed 
from chaos does not concern us, for, however old, 
nature is now highly organised ; nature is no first 
attempt at system. 

There are innumerable evidences of highly de- 
veloped, intelligible order. That order persists 
despite anything man does or thinks. It is the 
highest office of science to describe that order. 
If science is still an imperfect reconstruction, it 
can only be because men of science are not yet 
able to raise their thought to the dignity of nat- 
ure ; they do not yet know all the facts and laws, 
hence they must still make use of hypotheses. If 
man would truly know nature he must imitate 
nature's order, must organise the items of exper- 
ience in accordance with the laws which the uni- 
verse reveals. Reason is the faculty which enables 
him to do this. Reason in man corresponds to 
order in the universe. The system of the divine 
order is reason itself. 

Idealism, as here set forth, does not, then, assert 
that the world is in the mind. The world is pre- 
sented to the mind, exists "for" the mind, is known 
by the mind. If the world were present "in" 
my mind simply, I could change the order of my 



Constructive Idealism 4 2 5 

psychic states at will. I can indeed change my 
thought about the world as presented to me. It is 
easy from the point of view of a certain theory of 
knowledge to describe the world as simply exist- 
ing "for" my thought. But I cannot by an act 
of will change the character of the world or even 
modify the laws of my private experience. My 
knowledge is one fact, my will is another pos- 
session ; but the world is a hard-and-fast reality 
stretching endlessly beyond my will. The fact 
that I know it in terms of mental experience does 
not for one moment take from its reality. My 
thought belongs to reality; so does my will, and 
so do I. Reconstructed thought enables me to 
turn once more to experience to verify or correct 
it. Thus there is a perceived order and a con- 
ceived order. Thought constantly reacts upon 
experience and endeavours to lift conception to 
the level of what the perceived order proves itself 
to be, when repeatedly interpreted. All inter- 
pretations must be scrutinised. But there is no 
ground for ultimate scepticism, since we are not 
without the ability rationally to reconstruct ex- 
perience in such wise that further experience sub- 
stantiates reason. The fact that reason must 
verify itself by experience does not mean that 
reason is untrue. The fact that presented ex- 
perience is inadequate without reason by no 
means proves that experience is not real. 



426 Man and the Divine Order 

The economical idealism of Berkeley is ac- 
cepted as a part of the present system. The 
idealistic theory of nature is economical because 
it makes only those assumptions which are de- 
manded by experience as concretely given. The 
hypothesis of a material substratum divorced 
from mind is entirely superfluous. Nature is not 
a collection of separate things or atoms, but a 
system of living organisms, a world of organised 
energy. It reveals the activities of conscious 
beings, is the bond of union common to finite 
beings and the great Father-Being. It is known 
through consciousness, and cannot be sundered 
from consciousness. But it is no dream, no mere 
appearance. It is truly real, significant. Al- 
though not the product of a mere "plan/' it is 
nevertheless a continuous revelation of the creat- 
ive activity of God, part of His experience, life of 
His life. It is part of the divine order, hence it is 
scientifically describable in terms of law, system, 
evolution. Yet nature as a whole cannot be ade- 
quately understood alone, precisely because it is 
part of the eternal order. 

The optimism of Leibniz finds place in the pre- 
sent system in so far as it emphasises the organic 
orderliness of things, the principle of gradual 
mental development, the uniqueness of the in- 
dividual, and the reign of goodness, wisdom, and 
beauty. But the present doctrine is empirical, 



Constructive Idealism 4 2 7 

not mechanical optimism. To assume that the 
entire goodness and beauty of things is already 
determined, so that life is merely an unfolding, is 
to rob experience of its greatest meaning. The 
divine order is the best universal system, so far 
as one knows, because it combines the maximum 
of opportunity with the minimum of interference. 

Spinoza shows how one may retain the concep- 
tion of eternity, yet avoid the irrational negations 
of mysticism. To behold all things " under the 
form of eternity" through the "intellectual love 
of God" is indeed to enjoy the spiritual vision. 
Yet one may follow Spinoza thus far without ac- 
cepting either his naturalism, his pantheism, or 
his theory of practical life. 

Emerson exemplifies the ideal method of adapta- 
tion to the spontaneous developments of the high- 
er consciousness, fidelity to individual thought, 
poetic interpretation of spiritual experience. No 
seer has surpassed, and few have equalled him in 
this capacity. Yet there is a wealth in Emer- 
son's essays and poems which he did not organise. 
Plato contributes the method of organisation, the 
practical and philosophical concept of order. The 
surpassing wealth of Plato's idealism reminds us 
that the thought of the divine order is far too 
great to be encompassed by any one system of 
terms. The great consideration is not the specu- 
lative defect in Plato's system whereby the world 



428 Man and the Divine Order 

of nature is subordinated and the realm of Ideas 
put too far away, but the sublime insight which 
Plato imperfectly reported. So with Aristotle, 
Plotinus, the mediaeval mystics, Spinoza, Leibniz, 
Berkeley, Kant, Hegel, and other philosophers 
who have had the great idealistic intuition — each 
has made report in his own way, and each has 
exaggerated certain details. But the essential is 
the perceived reality which they tried to describe. 
Their failures do not point the way to scepticism, 
but to greater appreciation of the reality whereof 
they made individual report. 

The present system, when fully worked out, 
will have much in common with the constructive 
idealism of the Neo-Hegelians. The question of 
the relation of one's theory of knowledge to the 
conception of the "Absolute" is postponed for 
consideration in another volume. In the inquiry 
thus far we have found no need of an Absolute 
Being. Nor is there any need of a Spencerian 
" Unknowable," or Kantian "Thing-in-itself." 
All the reality we require is what is needed to 
account for experience of the type actually found. 
All our experience is relative, it is all relational. 
There is no single authority, no all-sufficient 
method. No experience is adequate by itself; no 
self or being is all-complete. Experience is ra- 
tional up to the highest point, but reason must be 
referred again to experience, and must make re- 



Constructive Idealism 4 2 9 

servations in its favour. The facts and unifica- 
tions of knowledge are only such as our experience 
thus far demands. There is no need to look be- 
yond the living God to find the highest self or 
reality. The divine order, although eternal in 
the heavens, is also everywhere about and within 
us, here on earth. 

Thus the present system is organic through and 
through. Since no experience is regarded as ab- 
solute ; and since no point of view, no science, no 
spiritual vision, no nation, not even nature, is 
knowable by itself, the utmost that any ex- 
perience, any datum contributes is an organic 
point of view. In the final summation of things 
all points of view must be organically adjusted 
without sacrifice of individuality. Even the re- 
lationship of God, the soul, and the world is or- 
ganic. God is incomplete without His universe. 
His republic of souls is naught without Him. 
Nature could not exist alone, yet nature, as the 
bond of union, contributes both to man and 
God. 

The method pursued is to start with the con- 
crete facts of life, and seek to understand their 
laws and significance. This method is pursued 
as the corrective of that mode of reasoning 
whereby man has wandered off into the abstract, 
the absolute, and lost touch with many-sided, 
practical life. Man may be artist, artisan, poet, 



43° Man and the Divine Order 

musician, statesman, man of letters, scientist, seer, 
philanthropist, saint, or philosopher. No man is 
at the same time all of these. Yet all of these 
and all other types, taken collectively, tell us 
what human nature is. Reasoning from appear- 
ance to reality, we know that what is found in 
embodied life must be resident in its ground or 
source. Therefore ultimate Being is describable 
as many-sided variety in unity. Amid the super- 
ficial contrast and conflict of forces there is fun- 
damental balance, poise, peace at the heart of 
things. The organic whole consists of God, man, 
and the world, existing in mutual relation. It is 
not God simply, for that would be pantheism. It 
is not the world simply, for that might be material- 
ism. Nor is it man simply, since that would be 
subjective idealism. It is ultimate Being, or 
God, finding His expression through the world of 
manifestation, existing in many forms and on 
many planes; the republic of human souls, over 
which God presides as Father; and the realm of 
nature, a theatre for the interplay of human and 
divine activity. Only the eternal whole shall be 
perfect, and its perfection cannot be understood 
apart from its progressive development. Without 
the clue of evolution, it is therefore impossible to 
search out perfection. 

Consciousness is the universal fact, the starting- 
point in the interpretation of the divine order. 



Constructive Idealism 431 

We awaken into a world of conscious experience, 
the nature, laws, and significance of which we 
progressively discover. The nature of our funda- 
mental experience gives us the clue to the nature 
of the universe, so far as we know it. The worlds 
of nature and human souls are directly revealed 
in our consciousness by the continuous activity 
of God, from whom the efficient power comes. 
Reality is made known through limitations and 
relations, not shut out by them. The most nega- 
tive critique of agnosticism leaves us a positive 
alternative, with greater evidence in its favour 
than for the negative proposition. As opposed to 
agnosticism, then, the proposition is here main- 
tained that our intuitive and rational organism is 
a true cognitive constitution, gives us real know- 
ledge of reality ; the world of natural evolution is 
revealed to us by the activity of God : it is actu- 
ally known through our consciousness, our ideas. 
Space, time, change, growth, and appearances 
are real facts in the divine order. There are no 
"mere appearances.'' 

Our point of view of interpretation is through- 
out that of Plato and all who have insisted that 
the lower must be understood in relation to the 
higher. We do not subordinate the lower, as 
Plato and the mystics have. We call it neither 
' ' illusion ' ' nor ' ' appearance. ' ' On the other hand, 
we do not extol evil into a dreadful enemy. 



43 2 Man and the Divine Order 

The fact of evil demands calm consideration from 
the point of view of what man truly is, the order 
to which he belongs, and the law of evolution by 
which he conquers. It is time to begin to talk 
more about the orderliness to which man can con- 
form, in so far as he is enlightened, and to make 
the problem of evil a part of the work of education. 
We have heard too much about "sin," and not 
enough about that Platonic ideal of many-sided 
adjustment in which even virtue must refrain from 
excess. 

We must take into account all that man is if we 
would understand him; we must have perspec- 
tive. Since man is a soul, a son of God; and 
since there is a higher, unseen realm where the 
ideals of this life are fulfilled, it were futile to ex- 
pect to know this life by itself. Professor James's 
contentions that outcomes, not origins; values, 
not facts alone, are to decide, has profound signi- 
ficance when applied to the thought of immortal- 
ity. Not until we enter the fuller life can we ever 
begin to close accounts. There are values, im- 
portant truths, all along the way. Each day is of 
value while it passes. But there are also values 
and truths that accumulate. 

In order to understand to what extent the 
present system differs from mysticism we should 
recollect that mysticism has assumed many 
forms. Elsewhere I have examined and rejected 



Constructive Idealism 433 

certain of its forms. 1 In the present volume we 
have found no ground for the acceptance of any 
of the disparaging negations of mysticism, and 
we have entirely rejected pantheism. The other 
types and characteristics of mysticism are ad- 
mirably treated in Inge's Bampton Lectures, 2 
in which Hindoo influences are carefully distin- 
guished from Platonism and Christianity, and the 
development of the different types is traced down 
to the time of Wordsworth and Browning. The 
author shows how the via negativa was gradually 
separated from the positive method of purifica- 
tion, illumination, and union. We read less and 
less about the " darkness" and "nothingness" of 
speculative mysticism, and more about the prac- 
tical and devotional types; nature-mysticism, 
symbolism, and the poetic interpretation of the 
religious life. It is clear that the mystic, like all 
men, has his problems. He is not necessarily a 
visionary, is usually a reformer, and his office is 
to call attention to the neglected resources of the 
inner life. 

Among the errors of mysticism pointed out by 
Inge, we may note the following: (i) The error of 
regarding the consciousness of self as the measure 

1 The Perfect Whole, 1896, Chapter on "Mysticism"; 
Voices of Freedom, 1900, "An Interpretation of the Ve- 
danta." 

2 Christian Mysticism. New York, Scribner's Sons, 1899. 

28 



434 Man and the Divine Order 

of personality. (2) The attempt to pass beyond 
human life, with its ties and the fact of love, to a 
vaguely far-off ' ' Absolute " ; or, as Inge puts it, 
"trying to reach the universal by wiping out all 
the boundary lines of the particular, and to gain 
infinity by reducing self and the world to zero/' 1 
Inge shows that the negative way leads to va- 
cancy, and he regards "the via negativa in meta- 
physics, religion, and ethics as the great accident 
of Christian mysticism." 2 (3) Pantheism is "a 
pitfall for mysticism to avoid, not an error in- 
volved in its first principles." 3 A prevailing 
fault of pantheism is that it regards everything as 
equally divine. (4) The ignoring of the problems 
of human imperfection and the problem of evil. 
(5) The deification of self. (6) The obliteration of 
the distinctions between the Creator and His 
creatures. (7) The separation from practical, 
social life. 

On the other hand, Inge finds very much to 
commend in the Theologia Germanica, in the 
writings of Eckhart, Ruysbroek, Suso, Tauler, 
and the great Spanish mystics ; and he calls atten- 
tion to a number of neglected English seers. In 

1 Christian Mysticism, p. 98. Emerson says that "mysti- 
cism consists in the mistake of an accidental and individual 
symbol for a universal one." 

2 Ibid., p. 115. That is to say, negative mysticism and 
pantheism are due to Hindoo influences. 

3 Ibid., p. 121. 



Constructive Idealism 435 

the more practical mystics there is "an unfalter- 
ing conviction that our communion with God 
must be a fact of experience, and not only a phi- 
losophical theory. With the most intense ear- 
nestness they set themselves to live through the 
mysteries of the spiritual life, as the only way to 
understand and prove them." * Tauler shows 
that separation from God is the source of all 
misery. All these mystics point out the differ- 
ences between the lower and the higher life, and 
enlarge our knowledge of the human personality. 
Yet Inge turns even from the most practical of 
the mystics to the New Testament with the con- 
clusion that in Johannine and Pauline Christian- 
ity we have a much higher type of the religious 
life, one which includes in purer form all that is 
best in the writings of the mystics. One finishes 
even this scholarly book, with its keen apprecia- 
tion of the sounder phases of mysticism, with the 
feeling that mysticism is a passing stage in the 
religious life. That which the author most highly 
commends is freest from that which is usually 
called mysticism. Nearly all the great mystics 
were led astray by speculative influences which 
spread in the West through Neo-Platonic chan- 
nels. Mysticism becomes more attractive the 
farther distant it is from India. It has played a 
valuable part as a reactionary movement. But 
1 Christian Mysticism, p. 167. 



43 6 Man and the Divine Order 

when its saner teachings are organised in accept- 
able social life, what is left can hardly be called 
mysticism. 

Jesus declares that men shall "see God," but it 
is "the pure in heart" who shall have this great 
joy, those who live with and serve their fellow- 
men. Since it is a cardinal error of mysticism 
that it has sought the fulness of the Godhead by 
isolated contemplation, the moral is that only 
through the completest social life shall the Father 
really be known. What Inge calls the Johan- 
nine Christianity is really the gospel of love. 
Neither John nor Paul countenance the custom- 
ary mystical methods. Had the Christian mystics 
really apprehended the spiritual simplicity of the 
Gospel they would have had no need to seek a 
speculative solution of their problem. One's 
Christianity need not be of the conventional Trini- 
tarian type of which Inge approves, to the be- 
littlement of other types and the relegation of 
Emerson to the category of "the dangerous." l 
But, generally speaking, one is inclined to agree 
with his conclusions and apply to his volume the 
same tests which the profounder volume by Pro- 
fessor James suggests. 

Reinterpreted, there is little mysticism left 
in mysticism. Mystical experiences simply con- 

1 See p. 322. Inge entirely misses the profoundest thought 
in Emerson's Essays. 



Constructive Idealism 437 

stitute one more class of empirical evidences for 
constructive idealism to scrutinise and assimilate. 
There need be no mysticism about the fact that 
the soul is in immediate relation with an invisible 
order of being. For the realities of the higher 
order are not made known otherwise than by 
the law of all "knowledge of acquaintance," that 
is, primarily through sentiency, immediacy. If 
there be mystery in the fact that we apprehend a 
higher influence, so is there in the fact that we 
feel the wind playing upon the face, or behold the 
beauties of nature. Idealism shows that the en- 
tire universe reveals God ; and the universe is pri- 
marily known because it. is felt, perceived. If 
there are illusions in the sense- world, so are there 
illusions in the domain of religious emotion. The 
whole world is the object of science. The whole 
world is the object of religion. Fully to know any 
one department is to know all, and in all spheres 
of thought reconstructive scrutiny is required. 
You may be a sensualist, if you choose; or you 
may cherish your mystical experiences in the 
form in which they come. But if you really wish 
to understand, you must rationally organise ; and 
to organise is to pass beyond mysticism. There 
are' very many practical doctrines in the writings 
of the mystics which may be rationally assimi- 
lated into the larger religious life. But in the 
last analysis it is that larger life which interests 



438 Man and the Divine Order 

us, the broader human experience of the spiritual 
type. 

The present idealistic theory may, therefore, be 
further defined as spiritual idealism of the em- 
pirical type. The word ''empirical" here means 
that the entire life of the divine order is in part an 
experience. Not that the divine system changes, 
but that the supreme beauty, goodness, wisdom, 
of the divine order is revealed through the attain- 
ments of its members ; something is being accom- 
plished which will not be fully known until it has 
been perfectly done. x There is a large, inclusive 
tendency working through things, making for 
that which is good in the long run (not for super- 
ficial, immediate good). We must look deeply 
into events to find this tendency. We must 
penetrate the storm to the calm spot, know both 
appearance and reality. Even then we cannot 
predict the exact outcome. We can only say that, 
beneath the apparently fatal conflicts of human 
society there is a forward tendency which is un- 
conquerable, a somewhat which gives a higher 
turn to things than even the wisest of men could 
foresee. And we may confidently declare that 
the goal toward which this tendency is making is 
spiritual, is for eternal ends, the soul, the immor- 
tal life — not for the ends of this lower level of 
fleshly experience. 

1 Cp. Professor James, The Will to Believe. 



Constructive Idealism 439 

The word " spiritual" does not here imply any 
assumption of spirituality. "Spiritual" is a 
vague, mystical term as popularly used. It is 
here restored to its highest significance, as a de- 
signation of the divine life. "God is spirit" is 
a fundamental premise. That is to say, God the 
Father is in part describable as everywhere, un- 
seen, unlike visible things, present in the mind 
and heart of man. Spirit, coupled with form, 
order, reason, is the highest Being, the supreme 
source of wisdom, life, power, love, and goodness. 
The world reveals the glory of spirit. Men, as 
sons of God, are spiritual beings whose highest 
prerogative is to apprehend and manifest the 
Supreme Being, each in his own way. The spirit- 
ual life in the broad sense of the term is not only 
that mode of conduct which is inspired by con- 
sciousness of the divine order, but it is the Pla- 
tonic, symmetrical life, and is characterised by 
love and the service of humanity. In the specific 
sense, the spiritual life is the type through which 
reality is most truly revealed. Spiritual idealism 
in conduct thus makes for spiritual idealism in the 
philosophical sense of the word. 

In so far as spirituality is implied in this doc- 
trine, it will be discovered in the life and through 
the observations of each individual. The ulti- 
mate verification of its truth is to be found in the 
ability to place one's self in the same relations, to 



44o Man and the Divine Order 

experience the presence of God in order to know 
the realities of God. The life stands first ; know- 
ledge of its laws is secondary. Reason may in- 
deed formulate the doctrine, test it, and pronounce 
it true or false. If it proves to be a logically 
consistent whole, so much the better. But as 
this is not the first value of the doctrine, it would 
be unfair to reject it when merely judged in re- 
lation to a particular logical theory. 

Yet the fact that the present doctrine puts so 
much stress upon the great realities of religion 
does not mean that the system, when fully de- 
veloped, will be any less critically philosophical. 
The guiding motive of the series of volumes, of 
which this is the eleventh, has been the adjustment 
between practical and philosophical interests, in- 
tuition, and reason. Philosophy has wandered 
too far from the concrete evidences of the higher 
things of life. It has valued theoretical consist- 
ency above facts which are so wealthy that they 
burst the bounds of theoretic logic. It has almost 
entirely disregarded immortality as an empiri- 
cal idea. It has overlooked the profound truth 
which mysticism so often misstates. On the 
other hand, religion has become overtheological ; 
while practical life has neglected the treasures of 
philosophy. There must be a larger reconstruc- 
tion in which religion and practical life shall aid 
philosophy. Each devotee must grow in orderly 



Constructive Idealism 44 1 

adjustment that he may the better appreciate 
the beauty and meaning of the divine order. For 
the divine order is not to be understood from any one 
point of view. It is an order that we can rely 
upon, a basis of faith, an object of worship, a 
source of inspiration. But it is also an order 
to think about, to interpret. The highest ideal 
is the cultivation of that organic individuality 
which poetically appreciates while it as faithfully 
contributes, which seeks ethical adjustment, but 
also socially serves. Each individual may thus 
reproduce the divine order in his own life and 
thereby enrich the universe. Nothing short of 
organic perfection is worthy of our divine son- 
ship. Yet that sonship is alone made perfect 
through its relationship with the social order 
completed in the divine order, 

One of the great practical lessons of our study 
of the divine order is, therefore, adjustment. In 
the first analyses of experience we discover an 
order, not our own, to which both thought and 
conduct must conform. Experience is an affair 
of ideas, and ideas are more or less plastic. But 
the order of experience in the larger sense of the 
word is due to a reality far superior to our wills. 
There is first an order of consciousness ; then con- 
sciousness is differentiated into the order of nature 
and the order of thought. Within the larger sys- 
tem we also find the social order and the moral 



44 2 Man and the Divine Order 

cosmos. Around and beyond our private con- 
sciousness religious insight also perceives an im- 
mediately environing spiritual realm, a source of 
superior wisdom and power. Thought also dis- 
tinguishes the idea of God. The divine order is 
the supreme order which holds all this in one sys- 
tem. To all these orders within the great system 
thought adjusts itself. The clue to this adjust- 
ment is the rational system of the individual. 

Yet rational adjustment in philosophic thought 
is itself secondary to the adaptation of conduct 
with the ideal of complete social and spiritual 
adjustment in view. The practical idealism of 
Plato is a splendid guide to the many-sided adap- 
tation of the individual life. Obviously, one must 
cultivate moderation in all things, — poise, balance, 
harmony. Life must become a fine art. This 
artistic life sometimes ends in self -culture, but it 
need not stop there. If it ends with mere self- 
realisation it is not yet perfect. The Platonic 
ideal is also an ethical, a social ideal. And there 
is nothing in the artistic world of Greek life which 
Christianity cannot assimilate and transfigure. 

The highest as well as the most comprehensive 
clue to adjustment is made known when Jesus 
counsels men to apprehend and exemplify the 
Father's will. That will is the will of the divine 
order. It makes for harmony, peace, goodness. 
The realisation of the social ideal of the divine 



Constructive Idealism 443 

kingdom is the highest attainment of individuals. 
That we are members one of another and may be- 
come a divine organism in very truth — this is the 
profoundest message of all. Philosophy may in- 
deed follow, and complete its account of the 
divine order by actual description of life in the 
Christian republic. Yet it shall no longer dictate 
any of the terms, but verify the great truth which 
has guided our investigation all along. That is, 
the divine order declares its own law, makes known 
its own consistency. In the ultimate analysis, 
the philosopher is a "surprised spectator" of the 
surpassing beauty of the universe. He beholds, 
adores, and reports as best he may, ever bearing 
in mind the great fact that many systems are 
needed to organise the multiform truth, life, love, 
power. It is "the pure in heart" who shall see 
God. Not until the life is complete shall know- 
ledge be made perfect. And when that day shall 
come it will be those who most fully put self aside 
who shall reveal the law, because they possess the 
love. 



INDEX 



Absolute, the, 45, 257, 321, 
324-326, 406, 419, 428, 434 

Adjustment, 182, 194, 441 

Agni, 6 

Agnosticism, 30, 40, 41, 287, 
289, 317, 333, 431 

American Scholar, The, 252 

Anaximander, 286 

Ancient Wisdom, 286 

Animism, 5-8, 79-99 

Apology, The, 250, 262 

Aristotle, 8, 121, 168, 202, 
203, 212, 282, 428 

Atonement, 386, 412 

Benn, 205, 208 

Berkeley, 301-316, 328, 417, 

426, 428 
Besant, 286 
Brahma, 255 

Brahman, 10, 204, 257, 321 
Bruno, 12, 289 
Buddhism, 17, 142, 409 

Cabot, 277 
Campanella, 289 
Charmides, 185 
Christianity, 43, 67, 168, 

373-395. 435. 436, 442 
Christian Mysticism, 203, 

212, 433-435 
Circles, 260, 267, 269, 273 
Clifford, 286 
Commonplace Book, 306 
Compensation, 266 



Conversion, 56 
Copernicus, 12, 23 
Cratylus, 174 
Creator, 11, 12, 23, 75, 96, 

398, 400, 404, 413, 434 
Critique of Pure Reason, 1 2 

Darwin, 12, 34, 342 

Deism, 400 

Descartes, 226, 228, 235, 289, 

302 
Design, 12, 141, 205, 215, 

233, 397-403 
Deussen, 286 
Discourse on Method, 302 
Divine Order, 105, 1 12-127, 

151, 175, 404-406, 414, 

427, 429, 441, 443 
Divinity School Address, 251 
Dualism, 10, 26, 28, 102, 108, 

226, 228, 235, 304, 311, 

356, 360 

Eckhart, 434 

Education, 187-189, 197, 350 

Eleatics, 169, 340 

Emerson, 15, 101, 132, 168, 

222, 246, 248-280, 297, 

427, 434, 436 
Empiricism, 46, 63, 67, 271, 

277-279, 304, 419, 438 
Essay on Man, 223, 232 
Eternity, 120, 196, 216, 326- 



334. 403, 427 
Ethics, Spinoza's, 213-220 



445 



446 



Index 



Evil, 28, 48, 108, 114, 124, 
130, 140, 178, 198, 233, 
243, 265, 357-3 6 9»43i,434 

Evolution, 20, 23-29, 35, 107, 
120, 229, 334~37 2 » 4oo, 
404, 410, 430 

Experience, 266, 267, 269 

Fable of the Bees, The, 223 
Fairbairn, 41 

Faith, 100-119, 126-151, 389 
Fatalism, 18, 21, 142 
Feeling, 84-86, 92, 96, 112, 

300, 319, 397, 419- 422 
First, the, 203-211, 220, 221 
Freedom, 18, 29, 106, 119, 

347. 364 

Galileo, 34, 289 

God, 13-16, 23, 48, 85-99, 
122, 148, 151, 325, 329, 
419, 429, 439; faith in, 
100-127; Plato's idea of, 
I 75- z 79; Spinoza's con- 
ception of, 214-221; Leib- 
niz's theory of, 231-247; 
Emerson's idea of, 249- 
255; the idea of, 396-416 

Gorgias, 176, 177, 179 

Grammar of Science, The, 17, 
421 

Greek Philosophers, The, 205, 
208 

Guidance, 134, 144, 146 

Hegel, 428 

Heracleitus, 169, 170, 286, 

408 
Hesiod, 8 
Higher order, the, 55-58, 64, 

65, 73, 107, 116, 131, 140, 

147, 160, 385, 419 
History of Materialism, 35 
Hodgson, 56 
Hoffding, 288 
Holmes, 345 
Howison, 422 



Hume, 282 
Huxley, 34, 35> 286 
Hyslop, 56 

Idealism, 44, 61, 165-200, 
245, 301-316, 328, 336, 
341, 417-428, 437-442 

Illusion, 153, 315, 317-329, 
346, 418, 422, 431, 437 

Individualism, 62, 245, 277 

Inge, 203, 212, 433-436 

Intellect, 269 

Intellect, the, 113, 279, 293- 
300, 380, 423 

Intuition, 32, 150, 173, 423 

James, Professor, 46, 52-72, 
133, 242, 285, 401, 422, 

423, 432,43 6 . 438 
Jesus, 43, 63, 67, 68, 103, 154, 

25 1 . 33o, 332, 373-395, 
416, 436, 442 
Justice, 104, 180, 197, 241, 
408 

Kant, 12, 40, 428 

Lang, 78, 87, 93-95 

Lange, 35 

Laws, 188-190, 197 

Le Conte, 84 

Leibniz, 223-247, 426, 428 

Lewes, 285 

Locke, 302 

Logos, 210 

Love, in, 182-184, 217 

Luther, 34 

Making of Religion, The, 78, 

87- 93, 94 
Man, 3, 181, 198, 252, 327, 

363, 3.7 1 . 429, 432 
Mandeville, 223 
Martineau, 69, 278 
Materialism, 21, 22, 31, 33- 

40, 53. 76, 3 12 , 352, 417 



Index 



447 



Matter, 301-313 
Mechanical theory, the, 51, 

76, 115, 143, 218, 227, 239, 

242, 303, 313, 421 
Melanesians, 91, 94 
Memoir of Emerson, 277 
Meno, 179 

Method of Nature, 255 
Monadology, 230, 232-234, 

236, 239 
Monads, 229-247 
Miinsterberg, 36, 37 
Myers, 25, 56, 87 
Mysticism, 21, 44, 56, 59, 70, 

121, 157, 163, 201-222, 

255. 296-300, 315, 396, 

408, 423. 427, 432-437. 
440 

Myth, Ritual, and Religion, 

95 
Mythology, 3-9, 84 

Natural History of Intellect, 

263, 264 
Naturalism and Agnosticism, 

36, 422 
Nature, Emerson's, 249, 251, 

254, 265 
Nature, 13, 14, 45, 216, 324, 

3 2 7. 332, 335, 418, 422- 

429 
Neo-Platonism, 168, 202- 

216, 220-222, 435 

On the Improvement of the 

Understanding, 213 
On the Notions of Right and 

Justice, 237 
On the Ultimate Origination 

of Things, 240, 242 
Optimism, 16, 28, 41, 55, 61, 

108, 143, 198, 223-247, 

275, 358, 426 
Order, 104, 176 et seq., 192, 

421, 424, 427, 441 
Organism, 231, 245 



Over-soul, 252-256, 270, 275, 
278 

Pantheism, 5, 10, 45, 161, 

256, 411, 416,430, 433.434 
Pearson, 17, 421 
Perfection, 20, 153, 155, 175, 

231, 238, 346-348, 430, 441 
Perfect Whole, The, 433 
Pericles, 166 
Persians, the, 10 
Pessimism, 16, 21, 61, 317, 

320, 370 
Phcedo, 185 

Phcedrus, 182, 196, 197 
Philebus, 193-195, 212 
Philo, 209, 210 
Philosophy, 1, 11, 41, 47-51, 

167, 263, 281-300, 321, 

339, 419. 420, 440, 443 
Philosophy of the Christian 

Religion, The, 41-43 
Plato, 1, 8, 165-200, 202, 203, 
212, 222, 264, 282, 297, 

340, 423, 427, 428, 430, 
432, 442 

Plotinus, 201-213, 216, 220, 

428 
Pluralism, 45, 60, 262, 316, 

395. 422 
Pope, 223, 232 
Primitive beliefs, 2-9, 73-99 
Primitive Culture, 75, 79, 83, 

92, 93 
Primitive man, 2-9, 73-99 
Principles of Human Know- 
ledge, 310-312 
Principles of Nature and of 

Grace, 235, 247 
Protagoras, 178, 179 
Psychology, 36, 37, 66, 337 
Psychology and Life, 36 
Pythagoreans, the, 169 

Reality, 47, 164, 298, 305, 
310, 323-325. 405, 419. 
425, 428, 431 



448 



Index 



Reason, 112, 192, 216, 234, 
279, 282, 295-300, 397, 
424, 425, 428 

Religion, 2, 11, 22, 30, 49, 
52-72, 101, 137, 197, 397, 
435. 437. 44o; primitive, 
73-99 

Renouvier, 282 

Representative Men, 264 

Republic, 168, 175, 179-182, 
186-191, 200 

Royce, 44, 64, 282 

Ruysbroek, 434 

Scepticism, 2, 311, 425, 428 
Schiller, F. C. S., 422 
Schopenhauer, 224 
Science, 9-12, 24, 27, 32, 35, 

36, 51, 61, 283, 421-424 
Self -Reliance, 258, 266 
Shaftesbury, 223 
Shakespeare, 4 
Siris, 314, 315 
Social reform, 107, 345, 391 
Socrates, 170, 195, 197, 287 
Sophist, 179 
Sophists, the, 169, 196 
Soul, 93, 149, 158, 172, 173, 

185-188, 199, 206, 230, 

239, 245, 254, 279, 326, 

419, 429 
Spencer, 34, 73, 83, 286, 342, 

422, 428 
Spinoza, 212-220, 224, 226, 

227, 302, 427, 428 
Spirit, 49, 136, 249, 254, 260, 

264, 268-272, 304, 314, 

315, 349, 356, 375-390. 

407, 439 
Spiritual idealism, 438 
Spiritual Laws, 266 
Spiritual vision, 121, 136, 

147-151, 156-164,173. 209. 

219, 283, 411 
Stoics, 289, 290 
Subliminal, 25, 58, 62, 70, 

87 



Substance, 214-221, 226, 227, 

304, 307 
Success, 265 
Suso, 434 

Swedenborg, 255, 256 
Sympathy, in 
Symposium, 182-184 

Tauler, 434, 435 

Teleology, 12, 14, 17, 42, 44, 

98,135,141, 151, 215,397- 

401 
Thales, 8, 285 
Theologia Germanic a, 434 
Thought, 85, 113, 205, 210, 

284, 297-300, 425 
Timceus, 171, 175, 179, 185, 

186, 212 
Totemism, 87, 91 
Tylor, 5, 75-99 
Tyndall, 34 

Uniformity, 420-423 
Unity, 1-30, 45, 102, 195 
Upanishads, 5 

Values, 51, 54, 64-66, 432 
Varieties of Religious Ex- 
perience, The, 52-72, 133 
Varuna, 89 
Vedas, 5, 89 
Veddahs, 83, 91 
Virtue, 178, 196 
Voices of Freedom, 433 

Ward, 36, 422 
Whitaker, 205 
Will to Believe, The, 46, 60, 

63, 242, 401, 438 
Windelband, 203, 207-209, 

286 
Works and Days, 265 
World and the Individual, 

The, 44-46, 64 
World-plan, 239, 397-403. 

407 

Zeller, 211 



Books by Horatio W. Dresser 

Education anfc tbe pbilosopbical UfceaL 

12°, $1.25. 

"It lifts it up from the level of dull routine. ... It, 
breathes hope and victory." — Trenton Advertiser. 

flDetbofcs anb problems of Spiritual Ifoealino, 

12°, $I.OO. 

"Conduces to a thorough understanding of the subject 
abounds in suggestions which if followed will promote health 
and well-being." — Pittsburg Times. 

Doices of ffreefcom 

and Studies in the Philosophy of Individuality. With a 
portrait of the author. 12 , $1.25. 

"The writer of this book has given us many volumes of 
great interest and power, but none equal to this last one. 
He takes us into the philosophical realm, but unlike many 
writers on these themes, he does not mystify his readers." — 
Baltimore Methodist. 

%ix>ing b# tbe Spirit 

Oblong 1 6°, 75 cents. 

"This little essay is the most valuable thing his pen has 
done, for it is not argumentative or didactic, but human and 
helpful." — Portland Transcript. 

XTbe power of Silence. 

An Interpretation of Life in Its Relation to Health and Happi- 
ness. 12 , $1.25. 

"A charming essay, clear and exceedingly interesting. . . . 
A hearty, healthy, wholesome book." — New York Herald. 

H Booh of Secrets. 

With Studies in the Art of Self -Control. 12 (By mail, $1.10), 
net, $1.00. 



New York G. P. Putnam's Sons London 



Books by Horatio W. Dresser 

Ube perfect Mbole. 

An Essay on the Conduct and Meaning of Life. 12 , $1.25. 

"A deeply religious essay upon the conduct and meaning 
of life. . . . The volume lays no claim to originality of 
thought, but there is always original thought where there is 
such freshness and depth of feeling." — The Outlook. 

TTbe Ibeart of 1ft. 

Compiled from " The Power of Silence " and " The Perfect 
Whole," by Helen Campbell and Katharine Westendorf, 
with a Preface by Helen Campbell. i6°, 75 cents. 

"These extracts have been made judiciously, and compose 
an anthology remarkable for the multitude of inspiring 
thoughts and for the beauty of their expression." — The 
Christian Register. 

Voices of 1bope 

and Other Messages from the Hills. A Series of Essays on 
the Problem of Life, Optimism, and the Christ. 12 , $1.25. 

"Helpful, stimulating, and comforting. . . no one can 
read it without feeling the better for it." — Boston Transcript. 

1Fn Searcb of a Soul. 

A Series of Essays in Interpretation of the Higher Nature of 
Man. 12 , $1.25. 

". . . Mr. Dresser's sane and helpful thoughts ought 
to be broad spread, for in such thinking we find something of 
that spiritual poise which marks the union of Heaven with 
our earth." — The Outlook. 

XTbe Cbrist flfceaL 

A Study of the Teachings of Jesus. 16 (By mail, 80 cents), 
n et, 75 cents. 

/IDan anb tbe H>i\>ine ©rfcer 

Essays in the Philosophy of Religion and in Constructive 
Idealism. 12% $1.60 net. 

New York G. P. Putnam's Sons London 



OCT 3 1908 



B&SKI 



,Kft. RY 0F CONGRESS 



022 011 760 1 



9\ 



wS*§m 



''"-■:'■■■ 

M 



w 



mam 



Warn 



gngni 
HBfflHi 



9)gP 






''■.-..' 
■•■■•■■■*■' 



